Trenzas (Braids)
As I sat and watched her
I sat a child,
a girl mimicking the woman at her vanity
Our cinnamon hands the mirror between us
But with a stone thrown in,
I was the rippled picture
Gently her hands combed through the cascade of silk black waves
The occasional streak of silver foam glinting through
As my hands stuck in knots of brambles and dry shrubs
I yanked, and yanked, and pulled
Roughly
She was a musician plucking harp strings
as she interweaved her strands.
A chorus of steady certain moves
My fingers knocked together as I knitted my own
Bits of straw jutted out along the braid
Other strands- missed entirely- we're left loose
Hung in limbo forgotten
Even as she tied the end
Her swift loops were swan dives.
I strangled mine
As if it were a snake poised to strike me
Wreathed a noose around it's neck
And when she was done she looked at me
Her eyes ponds of pity
and down at the bottom, in the dark center
There was betrayal
And I looked at her, fingers still twisting
at my frayed and split ends
My eyes, a deep well of murky brown shame
That was the way we spoke
The way our tongues looked and the words trailing off them
That was the way we spoke, in a language that is mine
And isn't.