hair

Underneath my bed I have hidden a chest.

The chest is filled with the curls of my relatives.

There are the curls of my sons.

There are the curls of my nephews.

There are the curls of my cousins.

There are the curls of my granddaughter.

They are carefully clipped curls and they are all almost a uniform color of brown.

Dark brown like the wood of the chest.

I cannot tell the different curls apart sometimes.

They all lie together entangled in some intimate embrace of hair.

They smell clean.

I clip them from my relatives after washing their hair.

I am good at cutting the hair of my relatives.

Their locks close cut hug their round heads.

Their doe brown eyes framed with long lashes.

Their eyes are wise.

But their eyes grow duller with age.

The brilliance of childhood is lost with age.

I have preserved their curls from babyhood.

Those hairs contain wisdom.

When I die I would like to be burned in a pyre made of the curls of my relatives.

I would like to burn in an implosion of that wisdom.

The stink will hover miles.