late for school, bags banging feet stomping
and suddenly you stopped your
careful pre-teen primping to brush
my hair
only twelve, and taller than me
already, willowy curves
and curly hair that never
loved a comb
wish mine was straight like yours
and
the grey hairs are the
softest
could have wept but
didn't, for the careful
strokes your father never gave
your sideways kiss before dodging
out the
door
3 comments:
What a lovely moment to preserve in a poem! It reminds me of a story I read about Marilyn Monroe: how she never forgot when a mother figure in her life stopped as she was getting ready to run her blush brush across Marilyn's face. Present tense (you stop your careful..) would put the reader more into the middle of the moment.
Lovely!
In stanza 2 'willowy curves' sounds a bit too familiar. But 'curly hair that never loved a comb' is great (my niece has hair like that).
You've nicely captured the beauty of this moment, and the surprise of it-- especially with the line break at 'brush/ my hair.'
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