First Haircut
My mother told me he would just “shape” my hair —
at age four, my curls so tight no one had patience
to brush them. In the hairdresser’s swivel chair,
I sat on a thick telephone book and as he scissored
my curls, I felt the vibrations in the follicles of my scalp.
The scissors sounds were strange.
The hairs were breaking tink,
like the needle-thin bones I remembered
from when father caught a baby sunny fish
and a few of the frail ones snapped beneath his knife
while he fileted it on the dock. I only saw the hairdresser
in the mirror except when he cut my bangs
and bits of hair fell like pine needles when
the Christmas tree was all dried out and the needles shook
loose and fell to the living room floor
anytime my Mother brushed by a branch. The hairdresser
did not look me in the eyes and this made me feel afraid.
I watched him in the mirror, I dared not
look away or even glance at myself.
When he removed the plastic smock, unsnapped
it from around my neck and said he was done,
I looked down at the wisps that still held the shape
of curls, the small tunnels of hair I’d finger on my head
to distract myself from whatever was going on
in the house. He’d cut away some essential part of me —
private, safe and hidden. My short hair hung
straight as wet cloth. And I began to cry
waiting for my mother to return. He stole my curls.
Silly. No he didn’t. They’ll come back. But I knew
that she was wrong. And she knew then
that she was wrong.
* * * * *
Scientists Overlooked the Snake Clitoris, Until Now
Lucky for the female snake that the male is well-attuned
to her hemiclitores, their intricate maps of nerves and erectile tissues
along the cloaca’s folds. Some men whom I have known
still seem unaware, their brilliant phallus like a hand
raised with its ready answer. Of course, a female
herpetologist made the discovery. Lucky are the female snakes.
Once I watched two pythons, their intertwining bodies
like ropes come alive on a pier, twisting themselves
around the cleat of their desire. I could feel
their rhythmic thumping echo in my skin.
I bow to the female’s power. She can store the sperm for years
and then is free to choose more
than a single partner, and pick which sperm to fertilize,
even a smattering from several of them, giving birth to
a mixed brood if she were unable to decide.