Getting Ready
For how many hours, total,
have you showered.
How many inches of hair
have you sliced off
and let fall. Self-maintenance
is manageable as
a small component of the day,
but if you collected
each sliver of time in a pile,
what structure could
house it. We could fill canyons
with nail clippings
and individually dislodged
strands from our
eyebrows. Getting ready is
a ritual. How will
our bodies and faces appear
to the world today.
Which plans call for the most
mirror-scrutiny.
We must make ourselves
presentable, must
take responsibility for the
bruisey stripes beneath
our eyes, the texture of skin
and edges of nails.
When you do your hair, do
translates one way
for you, another for me. Do
not rush. Put on
your face so we know who you
are, and let us
take a good, long look at you.
Love the line "When you do your hair, do / translates one way / for you, another for me."
ReplyDeleteAlways thought-provoking.
Interest artist.
I like that same line Maureen likes. Getting ready always seems like a colossal waste of time!
ReplyDeleteI love this, and you had me thinking. My favorite in addition to the hair thing is the bruisey eye... I take moments to get ready, my husband is so proud and can never complain that it takes his wife for ever to get ready...still...adding those moments up!!! Once I went away to a village and did not have a mirror...did not see myself in two weeks. Things change very quickly without mirrors. Happy Thursday Hannah!
ReplyDeletewe flow through time, and the days flow through us ... at any given instant, we seem solid and defined -- but all that hair and fingernails (among other things) suggest that we are actually quite permeable -- the stuff of the world flows into us, and back out, our bodies are ever changing, we each are a wave through matter that picks up pieces here and there and rides them for a bit and leaves them behind, our only physical integrity being the signal, the energy that lifts the matter, not the matter itself ... a well done, thought-provoking poem, hannah ...
ReplyDeleteI like the subject--already think too much about it, the repetitions. But again it's your ending that esp. wows me--i.e., chills me.
ReplyDelete