I promise not to touch you if we pull
the beds together, and you let your hair–
old cells, belonging as much to the world
as to you–drape across to me, so I might twist
it in my fingers as you do, in the fruit market
questioning yourself about melon and time
and the man who put you back on the pile
and made you never want to touch again.
If what they say is true–a womanís hair
grows seven years long before letting go–
I’d find the day he did it, a sad ripple
circling your head like a fallen halo,
and brush it out until it shone like new,
and lay it back upon you like a blanket.