Barbara Ann O'Leary

Location: Morgantown, IN
Email: wind_driven_leaf@yahoo.com
Pushlished In: Conspire, KotaPress Poetry Journal, Aesau


WITHOUT

cut it off, all off. i say cut it off
short - very

very short.
short enough

to bristle against the palm of my hand,
to remind me i go against the grain.
skin breathes better this way.

take it down tight against the skull.
flesh exposed, stripped,
sleek, vibrant, cool to the touch.

hair follicles feed toxins.
anger --
anger sprouts
from the roots of my head.

lop it off. watch it fall.

i grieve in stages. grief captured, captured.
grief scattered, sliding over waterfalls,
stirred up.

memories haunt
but cannot follow over water.
i flee across the water. safe.
ghosts can’t follow over water.

i fall back in place,
starting again -- without.

- Poetry - Pastoral (I) father david Variations of Fast Haiku Flirtations on Black Velvet Without Canceled Connection in Chicago To the Rose Where You've Been Ghosts wife and other woman Snow Dog At the Hong Convalescent Home Tango : Surviving September - Prose - A Train and a Farmhouse Winter Hunt Celebrity - Play - Acts in Between