Creases

you unfold the printout
that you took this morning –
it’s a photo of you
reclining in a La-Z-Boy
your short hair styled
in an asymmetrical bob
edgy, number six curls
bouncing with abandon

you gently smooth out
the four creases
smiling at how they seem
to intersect
so cruelly at your heart
in a stab

he asks if it’s you in the photo
and you say yes –
that was the bygone you
on the cusp of 20
and you clench your teeth lightly
when he says
that you were quite beautiful

you tell him to do away
with your long wavy locks
make you look
like that photo again
and he rests his scissors on the table
to ask if you are sure

running his fingers
through your black filaments
he observes how it is
still thick
unprocessed, in his parlance –
having never seen
a lick of dye
or chemical manipulation

in between snips he says
that beautiful hair is genetic
that your grandmother got it
from her mother
who then gave it to your mother
who then gave it to you
you don’t tell him
that it sounds pseudoscientific
or that you disagree –
that you have your father’s hair

he gives you a terrific cut
your new do looks chic
exactly like the photo
but your face
is a different story
that of course, is not his fault

at the train station
you look at the printout again
raise your phone
and click a selfie
holding up your chin
posing
with your best angle

then you juxtapose it with that old photo
letting the moment sink in
before crumpling it
into a loose ball
and tossing it
in the trash

Seahorses

their stubby fingers trace
the zippers
of my C-section scars
I tell them they are my seahorse tots
sprung from my belly slits

you interject and correct
in your loud papa voice :
it’s the daddy seahorses
who sport the pouch!

so they run to you
asking to see your slits
and I watch you teeter
on a three second period of grace
trying to dream up something
to save face

this one, baby
you just can’t win

Grand guesses at the afterlife

through blinding bardo states
it’s a flight at warp speed
curled fetal
in the white pith
of a capsula mundi

cells rupture and leech
then atomise
the waking is buoyant
and formless
a fission of feathering light

the great beyond
is an unruffled ocean
its silence vast
and lucent
the shade of pale mimosas