My dreads started as babies.
Softly coiled by palm rolling.
Row crops nested on my crown.
Wash them often.
Keep the roots in check with rubber bands.
Tied neatly with a bandana at night so they’re easy
to deal with in the morning.
The teenage stage comes five months later.
Rubber bands are cut. They’re wild fuzzy.
They do what they want.
Too small to tie into a pony tail, too wild
and haphazard to keep down.
They’re fuzzy, and the roots didn’t stay kept,
so they were latch hooked.
Chain three.
Double crochet.
Fourteen months pass and they’re now mature.
Follicles grow like weeds pushing threads
of protein that weave and felted.
The rope that shapes my face.
Four years of stories lie in the pith of all ninety-three.
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