The Girl with the Botticelli Hair

She wants to pull it out in clumps,
lay strands on his pillow and spirals
in his mouth as they kiss.

But there is no one to run fingers through,
smooth it, watch how the wind lifts and flings
when she walks at night in storms.

She wants to wake to the tug
of him sleeping on top of her hair,
blonde mixed with brown in the drain.

She doesn’t understand what hair,
skin, bone or muscle mean –
why they go to waste, useless and worthless.

Hiding and huddled, she is unwilling
to ride naked through a field
so her god can capture her soul,

grind her heart to pigment,
dip his brush in her tears,
make her hold still, staring and smiling

as he walks away, forgets the scent,
how her hair curled down her back,
floated in water at the beach,

how he held it up as he unzipped her dress,
unfastened her necklace,
exposed her throat.