The tabloids got it wrong.
Split ends may look like fishhooks
or an anchor.
But when she chews her braids
on a dusty afternoon, sitting on the porch
stoop,
they taste like Sunday at the beach,
a little salty/sandy. Long
blond hair the color of dunes, or star-
fish in a tidal pool. Sanderlings
winging in and out of a pair of foot-
prints wandering the shore,
two people making prints so much
in love they disappear
into foam.
Along the tide-line, hungry gulls.
Waves of hair in easy tangles, sea-
weed and an undertow of moon
coming full. A hook at the split-
end of each pale lock,
a long
long swallow briefer
than a kiss. Mermaid in her mist
of hair
until she wakes again
to Monday.