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When you left for work, I found one of your long hairs
on the floor of the bath. It had six curls-I held
it up and thought the world speaks much of your hair-as
if it screams all of you-the lead in the school play-
the meat of your heart-as if it is the means to
speak to love and god-the life in the vein of life-
and I hope we can laugh at these things and the brutes
who talk of locks, who think of your hair with their hands
in their own hair or in their pants-who want to hear
small taps at their doors and see you drenched in rain-lost,
with no name, no way home. Men will have these thin dreams,
as their sons will. I love your hair no less, the sweat
on the back of your neck no more, but I don't want
you lost, wet or not, or a means for me to speak
to the shelf of age or god. If our heads were shaved,
eyes blind, our arms cut off at the joints-we would love.
(Is this too plain and gross?) I love the glad shape of
your face, your smell, taste, and love that it is all too
grand for words-so I use old ones like joy and grace-
and I love your tongue, the strings of words you make, the
knife of your mind, the vile hearts you break.
You, Jo, I
love.
I dropped the one hair in the bed of our bed,
so it would be there when I died and went to sleep.
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