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Hair
August 25, 2006
There was a seizure — she shook her husband awake.
Now she lies on this bed, won’t open her eyes.
Her husband sits beside her, thinks of the cancer.
Every day there is more of her hair on her pillow.
The roots of it are slipping out of their sockets
as she lets out each breath. There. There.
by Fiona Robyn of a small stone
Categories: Short Shorts
Fiona Robyn
qarrtsiluni 
Those last two words are breath-taking, not only do they take the reader (me, anyway) immediately back to re-read, but each subsequent re-reading stuns yet again when it arrives back at that closing.
Beautiful.
I know an editor isn’t supposed to play favorites, but I have to say that Fiona Robyn’s three poems are among my favorite contibutions to the “short shorts” edition. More interesting than my personal tastes, however, is the fact that the conjunction of this piece with qB’s “Shadow,” with which it contrasts so beautifully, was completely inadvertent. Pure senendipity!
(o)