by S.B. Corfman
My mother doesn’t remember
a conversation about long hair, how
it wasn’t allowed. The passive voice
is intentional. It’s likely such a conversation
never happened. Who, then, is to blame—
which small allele—other than a previous
conversation about painted nails extrapolated
to each nerve, which, you’re right
isn’t the same thing at all? I haven’t spoken to Jeff
in maybe twenty years, but Jeff did in fact grow
out of a skirt, so he’s low hanging fruit
for parents who play hide and seek
each night but can’t believe their children
hide in their minds, too,
pomegranates thrown like tomatoes
at the therapists supposedly carving
crawlspaces in the back of that mind.
How much a child—anyone—keeps
from another. They’re not inventing it,
I promise you. They’re not ready
until they’re ready to talk, because
each projection fades as it roots
in the world. I wear pants and run
up to the line that separates the shape
of my body from the shape
between us. I am skeptical
even as I am still living. It turns out by the late twenties
many people’s hair begins
to thin. It never occurred to me.
I had certain expectations and they are confronted
by each biological pattern:
DNA, epigenetics, hormones.
Each system stays complex.
There is no such thing as a spot fix.