The theology of hair

All my loose hairs are falling into
my eyes this morning, trying to catch
my attention. What they’re saying
I don’t know. Perhaps I’m wrong,
perhaps it’s just an unplanned stop
on their journey to the bathroom floor,
but I doubt it.

I feel sad for everything my body
has lost over the years:
the hair,
the waste,
the sloughed skin,
the gobs of spit.
It must be lonely to be so callously ejected
from the womb, so to speak,
to be thrust into the world motherless,
to be an outcast with no arms to hold you.

As all my detritus gains
independent consciousness
does it wonder where it came from?
Does it gather under a holy roof,
first to ponder then pray to this unknown god,
to me, who really has no say in its life?

Blame the guy above who, for all I know,
is pointing to the next floor up, all of existence
a series of larger babushka dolls.

A lone hair falls from one god’s face to the next,
making us wonder where it all came from.

Me no Tarzan

The room’s silence is complete,
like a jungle without birds,
only tight-lipped trees with roots
gripping the dirt of loneliness.

I could live alone in a jungle for a little while
but I’d go crazy soon enough. The need for others
would sprout like wild hairs on my head.
I’d talk to the monkeys in the top branches.
They’d throw mangos at my head but otherwise
ignore the foul-smelling human far below.

I’m people who need people
but I don’t need them as badly as some.
I can go a whole weekend without saying more
than “hello” and “thank you” to anyone.
It’s a survival skill:

with all of us packed so tightly together
it’s still a jungle out there,
with tight-lipped people whizzing by so fast
it’s like they were never there at all.

Howling

All my desire lies at my feet like a big shaggy dog that must be continually fed, from my stream of whining if by nothing else.

Thursday morning and I must drive to work soon. I don’t want to. I don’t know what I want. From my life. From this very moment. It can’t be to sit in the dark all day reading an FDR biography, watching the sun work its magic on the neighbor children who screech with ecstasy, the fulfillment of all desire. Why do kids get all the fun?

The dog looks up at me, tail wagging. He seems inspired, as much as any canine can seem inspired. “I want to melt,” he barks, “I want all of us to melt into a huge ball, all our wants flowing in and out of each other, finding an outlet for every need, a positive for every negative, an itch for every scratch. We’ll float above the Earth,” the dog howls, “a second moon, a happier one and more pliant. It will be heaven!”

The dog’s eyes grow misty, then sad. He slides back onto his stomach for another restless sleep. And I’m left with a book and a dream.