the cowlick
on the back of my head
is in the shape of a vortex.
a whirlpool
yeah,
that’s the word.
I always thought
that patch of hair
stood up at attention
because too many times,
I’d slept on it wet
bent the follicles
to sway in that direction —
unkempt
I’ve been taming it,
the cowlick,
wetting it down
in the bathroom mirror
each morning for years
before work
thought that’ll fix it
last week, I shave my head
and find out the true shape
of this cowlick.
huh.
not what I’d expect.
a whirlpool.
it’s cute, really.
my mother always said,
from an arial view,
the streets where I grew up
looked like a rose
I’d say it does look something like a bud
like the growth on the ZZ plant,
Z’s finger’s pointing to the new buds,
one by one
or like a pussy
the one I’m looking up at now
watching my girlfriend shave
the one they own
I’m sitting on the bathroom tile
playing with the dog
thinking how
becoming myself
can feel so very pedestrian
a pair of clippers
like the ones we use
to groom the pup
I’ve contemplated shaving my head
since I first saw GI Jane
and one night we just do it
no time like the present
I wept
watching years of hair
fall to the ground
like a story
I felt like a sheep
being sheered after winter
I felt like a mammal
and not just a girl
I never got the turns right
on those rosebud streets
lost again, leash in hand
blankets of salty fog
I grew up here.
could I really be this dumb.
streets that curve
and tumble you back
in the direction from which
you’d come
but I knew,
when I hit that blue
horizon
I was heading west
all roads lead
to home
I’m watering a palm tree
I rescued
from a dumpster
and it lives in my living room
in Texas,
always looking a little lost
that first winter,
I watched those sweet palms
die and wilt under the weight
of snow and frost
what is a palm tree doing in Texas?
I brought this one inside
and remember a time,
a season,
when we were all younger
and my family and me,
we lived on a street
called Las Palmas
I touch its leaves
and my body leans west
I still put my water glasses
into the cabinet
with the lip facing down
mother knows best
dust bowl habits
I guess
that view
that arial rosebud view
all roads leading home
that is my cowlick
a map
on the top of my head
like the more I control it,
the more lost I get.
I surrender.
I am more than this body.
I am more than this house.
I am lost in this home,
hacking my way out.