He says he loves to watch me brush my hair.
I performed two or three times just yesterday.
He counts aloud the strokes- continues his stare
and requests I do something different today.
I begin to twist, to coil, to spiral
upward, knotting it tight to bind with pins
that hide beneath the loops. How's this? I call
into his silence that lasts until he hisses,
Take it down one pin at a time, in my ear. I ease
them out until the first small piece slides down-
tickles and kisses my nape. Tendrils that are freed
gather to reunite drifting around
my shoulders. Mussed and tangled in snarls it hangs.
His only response is, Now brush it again.
©Written in 1995 for my Forms of Poetry college course. It is a Shakespearean sonnet. It won first place in the Eastside Writers poetry contest in 2000.