VINYL POETRY

Volume 9, November 2013

BIRDIE
Janice N. HarringtonView Contributor’s Note

Bound

When the time comes, I will lift a sprig of hair
beside her brow and smoothly braid the strands.
I will wrap and tie the braid: tight against the scalp
and tight around its ragged end, securing the strands
so that they will not unravel or slip their bonds.

I will draw the plaited hair upward and snip it
from her scalp: a small sound, as if I’d rubbed one palm
against the other or sighed or said, in a low voice, stay.

Hearing the scissors snip and close, she will turn her head
to me and, knowing how what we would keep falls away,
ask if I’ve tied the hair tight enough. I will show her
the severed braid, a whip of grey no longer than a finger,
a leaf stem, or the wick of a votive candle. The weight

of her hair will lie against my palm, dry as winter grass.
I will wrap it in tissue and bear it home to tuck
into a snuff tin with the hair of the women who belong
to me. She did the same herself, and so did her mother,

and from the dull tin I will lift each plait, coiled, curled,
and spiraled round, calling the names, some gone ninety
years or more, and draw each tendril—brown, black,
gray, red as flame, this one snarled with naps, that one soft
as down—and hold them against a cupped palm, small switches,
delicate calligraphies, moth tongues whispering remember.