When you tell me to brush my tangled hair

I say,

Nature evolved hair, not brush,

but it did leave those patches of grass

brambling down the backs of

the paths I ran along, fleet-footed the way

all children are, wind-swept

to our next rapture.

When you aren’t looking, I learn

to slake my own thirst.

Like the water-striders

in our pond, I traced a razor’s edge

suspended between girl and woman:

no light to bring me up,

no dark to pull me down.

I tried to see the new horizon through animal eyes.

The strange slits of the goat-eyes helped me see

through fences, across pastures; the black inscrutable orb

of the horse-eye drew me in.

You tell me,

                        Beware the wolves with unchecked fingers

                        that ripple down your spine,

And you should know

I couldn’t avoid them completely.

But in the countryside there is room to grow,

so I grew the way the wildflowers did.

Neural roots surged through the soil of my mind,

and I grew vast and gentle.

And if you asked me who my friends were

I’d say,

I am the friend of knee-deep mud after a long drought,

the parched earth drinking again.

I am the friend of rust and barbed-wire, lightning that blackens oak,

the twitch of a horse’s tail and the heavy power of its hooves.

And if you speak of conformity, you should know

I won’t listen.

Yes, I still keep my hair messy like a child’s;
I still run breathless from one splendor to the next.

I still drink it in wide-eyed, unblinking
so I might slake my unceasing thirst

with only the tears that fall

from my open eyes.

You say,

    Complacence brings a comfort of its own.

And it’s true: in my third act I will give myself to the soft

sting of twilight, the clicking of stones

and murmur of water. I will straddle heaven
and earth, its strata and firmaments,
but for now:

My world is a private wilderness of my own creation. I will not brush my hair.