Monday, January 4, 2010

POEM: vanity








This is real
not a movie
some late night tear-jerker
where the heroine
bravely
defiantly
shaves her head
I am not brave
nor resolute
not willing to let go
I am vain
watching helplessly
as my crowning glory
fails
strand by strand
hope against hope
that somehow
someway
my grandmother's roots
the same ones that kept the gray
from tainting my locks
beyond the pale of youth
hoping those tough familial roots
would spare me this indignity
this insult upon too many others
but roots only go so deep
and hair is as mortal
as vanity

1 comment:

Chuck Dilmore said...

i cannot pretend
to know what you feel, fear, Kayleigh.

but i just meditated
the roles reversed, and
you told me something simple:

"chuck, put a sign above your head.
every time you look up, you see:
happy. healthy. healed."

impossible to believe, but
still, i would do this... and
day by day those words get inside of me.


best strength, Kayleigh~
Chuck