"Hair"

"Hair"

These ghosts are heavy

Weighted shoulders 

slumped

Bending forward to arch my back

To shoulders touching 

A pinch

Where a muscle spasms

despite the mind’s begging to 

quiet

My spine bows

And these bone brackets

Echoed the reverberations of 

"Oh my god"

The tears took time to come up from the well 

where they were waiting 

For the next transformation 

Your absence is felt

Between my ribs and brain

This is not settling down

Unsettling in is more accurate

No sense in senselessness

You, player of women

Juggler of stories and secrets

In the last second before collision

Did you see the snow and sun 

and hold your breath

the cold Alps air crystallizing your alveoli

This wasn't your last

I bet your hair gave the surgeons 

one helluva time

Snippers clogged, wet

And ruddy 

matted between wild and life

and blood and clot 

and ice melting the mess 

into pools of what was 

Thought

Patterns

Brilliance

Did your blood shine brilliant 

On your new lovers fingers? 

Did she hold you 

Weeping? 

Or was the tree 

left to mourn 

over its dirt birth

in the shores 

along the trail?

Stupid helmets. 

Always crushing the freedom 

That your wild hair danced

In the wind. 

And when you'd gone

the blue skies were still blue.

The clouds still overhead

no wild wind to shake the trees.

No momentuous quake.

Weight of the world still same heft

pinched between my shoulder blades,

tired from always pushing 

up the mountain 

and back down again.

You left these wires crossed, 

These ropes all snipped and strung out. 

And your harem of wild things 

Are more soft beauty than brute. 

Did you wonder what marvels 

we'd weave?

Fancy a friendship

Over mutual discordance, 

unsettling, 

and frayed knots

When we have a moment 

to let your absence hang in the air,

we all fear to answer the question

and a brave one whispers

Was it 

an accident? 

Was it?