Hair

Whenever I step into the bathroom,
the more
I feel you there,
the more I'm forced to feel.
What tyranny of hair!

All the water that has washed my body
keeps playing restlessly
around my feet.
They have nowhere to go.
Under hair's dominion, their captivity.

Water gathers and stays;
with water flows
your hair's endless conspiracy.
In water hair, in hair water—
hair's liquid revelry unfolds.
Perhaps in mind's distraction...
you bind me constantly
in hair!

Your hair's procession marches forth
and proudly blocks
the water's passage out.
The marchers have one demand:
today they go nowhere.
Let life be lost, but not the road surrendered.
Water's force drowns under hair's insistence.

In hair's politics
gets trapped
yours and mine—
hair's relationship,
hair's matrimony.

That barricade bears clear witness:
your hair is falling, your head growing bare...
your husband's pocket lacks the money to stop hair loss...
your head full of hair is becoming history...
you have no time to clear fallen hair from the bathroom floor...
you're so tired from pushing our household along...
cheap shampoo devours hair along with money...
and so much more!
This testimony executes my peace of mind.
My comfort hangs from your hair.

Yet
your busyness and my poverty
are overshadowed by
your laziness and my irritation.
Having found you... what a hair-bound life I got!

With all humility and fear I say:
even without leaving hair scattered on the floor this way,
love is possible, hair can be celebrated.
By your hair I implore you,
throw this hair-splitting into the furnace at once!

Even splitting hairs
over your love's
finest analysis,
except for one hair
I find nothing else.
If you truly love me,
you come instead—
don't send your hair.

Such a small life!
What's the point of filling it hair by hair, tell me?