Dawning

It shouldn't matter,
but it does,
the way the light
bursts across the
edge of curtain,
sharp, bright,
unannounced in
dawning time,
as morning, when,
just for an eyelash
moment, I thought
it might be an
angel, dreaming
her way into my
world, smiling
sadly, as if
she knew what
the day would
bring, and hoped
to soothe my
unconscious fears.

Bereft

Bereft, bewildered,
bestowed this pain
from wanting some
thing other than
what is, where
desire becomes a
demand, a need
so deep it feels
as if the heart will
break, and tears
will fall in shocking
drowning, washing
away nothing, but
the dust of love,
leaving the hard,
hurting, wanting
to hold its ground,
in ancient wound.
 

Curls

I will give you curls,
my grandmother said,
just like the Princess,
whose photo you saw

in a magazine, and so
I gave myself over to
her hands, and the
process of taking the

fine, ever so straight,
hair, and making it
fall in silken curls,
just like the image

I held in my hand,
and yet, once it was
over, and I was set
free, and the hair

had dried, there was
no silken curl, just
a mop of frothing
busyness, bursting

around my head,
and even the hours
spent rubbing and
rubbing, against the

carpet, could not
soften or tame that
wild, determined
shock of hair. Only

as the weeks passed
did it stop mocking
me, and slowly fall
from grace, to

become again, what
it was only ever
meant to be, laying
forever to rest, the

dream of being,
in some small way
a Princess with
soft, silken locks.