LE CHANTEUSE DE CHEVELURE

To Marcia

A rapier’s skill with scissors
and comb, she sculpts
a feast of heads
under spells of magic.

Her motion dances
toward the sea, turning
a silvery halo of age
into a moment of youth.
The rhythm of her hands
shape and color
secrets of wintry forests

where African drums beat
a fevered song at the end
of a breaking wave,
she recites odes
into ears of seashells,

pirouetting between
dance floors of clouds
and litanies of falling hair.