28
HAIRS
A guy years ago in my poetry workshop
went gaga over female hairs
(he would only use the plural, “hairs,”
“a swirl of light on her long curvy hairs”).
I brood on that “s,” as when Sandra Cisneros
used the jet plane’s rest room to dry-rasp
arm-pit “hairs” to meet smooth-shaven
her proper father down Mexico way,
or when Esmeralda Santiago
praised her teacher’s “specially beautiful”
legs “because covered
with long thin hairs.”
It’s fine to praise a women’s hair
but something other (funny, no?)
to speak of her “hairs.” But why? We’re told
“He numbereth the hairs on thy head.”
There’s dignity in that, and consider:
“His eye is on the sparrow,” so surely
He must be concerned with you and all your
funky, uncountable hairs.