Watermark

"Why cut your hair?"

It pulls so heavy, so long
it's a hindrance to sitting.
Up, it brings headaches;
down, a tangle and no one
but me to brush it out.
No one lifts it but me,
no other hands hold it.
Braided, I'm a matron;
knotted, a librarian. Some
other woman or child, bald
from illness and its cures,
will carry it with more
grace, more gratitude.
It will grow back, thinner

and more gray. I found
blood on the garden
stones this morning.
Some songbird, caught
in the talons of a kestrel?
The garden is blooming:
yellow columbine, blue
delphinium, purple allium,
coral bells, a hundred small
white flowers on the wild
geranium. I breathe deep
the fertile air. I try to stand
up straight. I try to hold
my head high. It's heavy.

  

[revising in place...]

June Moon

Rose Moon, open.
Strawberry Moon, fill
our mouths with sweetness.

It is the month of marriage,
weddings under arches,
long dresses and dress coats.

Women marry men, men
marry men, women marry
women, inconstant humans

promising constancy, forgetting
how you fade, how you pass
from fullness to absence; from

promise to amnesia. Bless
these brides, these grooms.
Scatter your light upon them.