History in Hair

History in Hair



Just before you left
I laid your hairs
End to end
For three
Days

The map
Of the edge
of time,
My Darwin,
it became
a map
for the edge
of you:

north to your brain
south to your guts
east and west to the
steppes of your hands

the strands were shimmering
wires with
all communications
sprinting along them
like
sunlight on
the first copper
to stretch across
a new and disconnected
nation.

You emerge
An emulsion of time
Tumbling toward me
On the floor,
The gold and silver
Of under the bed
dreams glinting
scattered
over the ages
of us.