Sweet Potato Haircut

and I don’t understand the buds
or the blossoms. I don’t know
how to make kombucha or friendship
bracelets. Friendship too can be so hard
to maintain on some days, but mostly
it is my life. I have never
worked with leather
or wood, Lefty Lucy
is supposed to be easy
but I never got her. My other name
would’ve been Lucy but what difference
would it make. I wonder what our names
do? I have never named a baby
but maybe. I will. I have named
days and hours: Day of Darkness,
of Hunger, of Rainbows. I named
a day in my diary “12 pints
of strawberries” bc we finally
finished them, a jubilant
massacre of juice and seeds stuck
in our teeth I have planted trees
but I have never cut one down. At least
not with my own hands. Maybe
in the movement of my money
toward every yellowy paged journal
and every Pema Chodron book
I have used a whole tree. I try to be
grateful for my paper though
you never know when you are
wasting it. I don’t understand time
but it still moves. Minutes tocking
toward seconds who swell into night
time and a year from two months
ago how did you know
it was my birthday? Time has an open
mouth gurgling, little flecks of it
flying everywhere. I didn’t wash
my hair so much when I was young
but now I seek softness. I have stared holes
into my eyes from loving the sun
too much I think that seems like something
I tend to do. Loving you, loving him and her
and them and all the doggies passing
in the street I just want to meet
myself in the mirror with my eyes
wide. Sometimes I sleep
with my notebook under my pillow
for thoughtful dreams. I mean
dreams full of thoughts. I heard someone say
sitting in a nearby-to-mine patch of
sunlit grass,

“We don’t have to be
so close yet”

I mean imagine savoring
The Apartness and The Moving
Closer. Trusting tick of time to hold
you steady while you sniff
and circle. I find myself fearful
of those hands but I still step
outside to watch the young clouds
foaming pink in the early morning.
I still eat pizza in bed and wonder
how the night can smell so
delicious when it’s spring and I
have no one else to be but
Daisy.