Your fingertips, before I can protest

drag intentionally along my scalp 

Outside of a stylist’s chair, 

I’d never felt something so sweet

I panic –  am I gross to him? 

I can taste an apology forming in my mouth

A strong white hand finds a way through my thick black naps

to massage my skin, and unawares, to knead my tired mind

The backflips and straddles and jumps 

all of them quiet to silence

I unravel into your lap –  

I let braided coils and kinks do what they will with your touch 

These small moments, it seemed, 

formed an entire swirling romance for me among gardens and stars

Uncharted intimacy bound me to the you I thought I knew, 

and the cord becomes inseverable  

How much I must have loved you - must love you

to lay in vulnerability, secrets of my hair exposed 

A trick you’d learned long before

it was really nothing and already forgotten

If I’d told you that you taught me love and softness 

there in your arms

If you’d known the truth, I’m only a novice

and for me it was something - still everything

Would you have stayed and unbraided me?