Mairead byrne

GROOMING

I brush with your father's soft silver brush,
which you love, for it smoothens the surface,
asks no questions, like his hands, hurriedly
settling, before lighting a cigarette.

Then with my brush, which you hate, difficult
fingers rake, immune to your cries, insistent
on manifest destiny, idée fixe
of encroachment, I will know, I will know.

I take up the fine tooth comb, snout nosing
blankly along white runnels of scalp, north
to south, snuffling for inroads, thrust back
again and again by covert refusal of hair.

I change tack, airlift from the interior,
send foot patrols out, skirmishing on the perimeter,
stalking unfurrowed brow, skirting the pools
your forehead exudes — your hairline presses
out beads like the crowns of the princesses
you draw — as silence falls down

and I come to the delicate country
at the back of your neck, my Burren flower,
damp tropics at the down-covered nape,
my only one, exposing the mauvish inlet,
naive skin, candid hollow (which took
such ages to cover) to risk of the sun.

I lift molten strands, copper straps, ox-blood
ribbons, I sift and I pin, caught in the task
of placement, displacement, separation
a dream that evades until,
abandoning instruments, I plunge in,
I handle your warm weight of hair,
rummage through it, meditative as a cat

remembering the ache of this head, or
was it this head, under my ribs before
birth, then the rudeness of passage
and after, when it still needed propping,
already turned from me, neck red and stunned
with milk, this head which I almost own!

remembering long afternoons in the schoolroom,
slow storage of heat from high windows
hair heavy as a hat on my listening head

lulled now, resistance to blunt finger-tip
fades to nudge slips to shift at my touch

I unfold skein after skein, layer loosing
layer, lustrous fiber, tessellation
sans syntax, blonde heliograph, amber
chatter, criss-cross of russet on gold,
burnished chaos, semiotics of shafts'
gleam and glint, now, at its most maddening,
the hair opens up to me,
yields from its mass the particular
rhythm of the singular hair
like a poem from debris of drafts
child from the pit of birth
it seems that at last I can know
one living hair of your head, for nothing
to the diligent expert is impossible,
my consort my familiar my mate.

At night you lie finished beside me,
heaped on our bed, sculpted
in light from uncurtained windows,
inviolate as marble,
anointed at forehead and throat
with the rank oil of the mother,
sleep clothing each exit and entrance
that morning gives access to —

the imperious voice has turned in,
imperious finger that points
to this button, that nail,
collaborative silence that submits
to my stroking, fastidious
naming of parts —

And still your fingers furl towards me,
still the incessant winkling of time,
involuntary donorship of parts.
I trade my red meat for all your soft substances,
your harvests of hair and skin.
You repay your debts in scales and secretions
and a threat (that you will always sleep with me),
your blood pulsing onward as I relapse

afraid to look at your milk-teeth
to mark the first signs of decay

And still your fingers furl towards me,
while your head, hair tied tightly back,
bent in dream, explodes on a vision
of Adam and Niamh, as you hear it,
gallantly naked and riding the waves,
Niamh's golden hair whipping round them,
astride her white mare and galloping
from Eden to Beann Éadair, Howth,
from Paradise to the Land of Youth.

The bright diadem breaks out!
You sort through the myths I have funneled you
for fear you might think I am God.