Luxuriant

Those slow afternoons, she'd lie 
on the couch and rest her head on its arm, 

then gesture for me to come pluck out the white 
hairs from her head with a pair of tweezers. 

Five centavos for each, she winked. Perhaps 
I earned twenty-five. Her hair, still thick 

and glint-dark then as a tidal pool. 
Sheened with a slick of coconut oil,

it needed no other adornment. But
she tried out trends— pixie cuts, 

kiss-me curls. Now I'm the same age she was 
when she began tinting her hair with henna, 

as the shoreline above her forehead slowly 
receded. I touch the scalloped curve 

on a barette, the crosshatched tuft from 
my own hairbrush, look in the mirror 

at the part resembling a trail as the moon 
raises its tortoiseshell comb into the sky.