My grandmother died with a head full of pressed hair,
by now it must’ve grown around her like a canoe, even dead
she’s headed home. I dream her hair
fills the room, replaces the sheets
on the bed. I run my fingers through
parting her scalp like rows in a tobacco field.
My uncle’s hair was curly, but he covered his
with a baseball cap, his casket full of waves,
floating there like a king
waiting to be pushed out into a moon filled sea.
He dreams of how an ocean moves in the night,
though neither of them has seen the Atlantic.
Once my hair touched the middle of my back,
I made a home from my hands I pressed
my face into, my living
uncles called me sissy, I’m still soft
in their eyes, my sins
braided into my glory. My hair
short now, though it dreams
it’s as long as any field in Franklin County,
where the last recorded hanging was beside a patch of soybeans
and brought a crowd. [End Page 46]
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