I never told you
that your black hair
was a forest
where I lost myself;
blood slowed down
to tree sap speed, and
memory mercifully
failed.
I was a visitor there,
lucky
and briefly safe
in its density,
soothed
by that smell,
like still-breathing leaves
whispering
from the ground.
I am sorry
that I could not stay.
When I had to go
you cut off your hair,
grieved with your scissors,
the severed coils
spilling
on the floor.
But it grew back.