my damp, dark curls unfurl

part like curtains around your fingers

and it’s this gentleness I feel I don’t deserve

breath held like a grudge

coaxed out with every stroke of the comb

smooth, strainless, strikeless, stainless

the ease I let in is all at once alien and an old friend

to my battered brain and its every vigilant nerve

but sweet as spring snowmelt to my starving skin

and it’s petals unfolding

shedding the season’s final frosts

to drink in the sun again

a flesh that forgot

it could ever feel

so warm