on hair loss
The lady who sits across the aisle from me,
On the B train heading to Brooklyn is losing her hair.
The first time I saw her the strands lay like patchwork quilt,
Brassy blonde and mousy brown and pale roots like they couldn’t quite decide,
Then along the meridians they began to retreat like a tide that ebbs
Indisposed, the individual fibrils wilting in apology.
In the grime of the subway window flitting past 35th street,
I watch her push over fuller strands to hide the emptying patches,
And her fingers hover like vultures.
When our eyes meet, I fight the urge to reach across microbial pole
and McNugget-thickened air and tug off what remains all at once.
But I don’t. When I step off the train I think of the terminal thrash
of the near-dead against my palms and I am afraid.
In the shower my hair comes off, writhes like garter snakes
And gathers in fistfuls at the drain and I cack. (i think: not yet)
I hope she can forgive me.
