Paul F. Cummins

TOSSING HAIR

She tosses back long black hair
A conductor-like sweep of the hand
Prefacing careful considerations with this
Gesture unconsciously graceful as waves
Of the tall Kansas grass
Wafting in the summer winds;
Stirring and rearranging the gravity
In our conference rooms and seminars,
Her gesture almost cloying in its cadences
Yet changing the very currents of our thought.
When her hair began to disappear,
She adorned rainbows of scarves
Then soon allowed us to see
A new silver-gray crop of hair,
A terrible new beauty born there
And we could feel a shift
In the weight of the air.

–from Rattle #25, Summer 2006