Dreaming Of Hair
by Li-Young Lee

Ivy ties the cellar door
in autumn, in summer morning glory
wraps the ribs of a mouse.
Love binds me to the one
whose hair I've found in my mouth,
whose sleeping head I kiss,
wondering is it death?
beauty? this dark
star spreading in every direction from the crown of her head.

My love's hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.
My fingers harvest the dark
vegtable of her body.
In the morning I remove it
from my tongue and
sleep again.

Hair spills
through my dream, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles from the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree
of my childhood--the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, _Don't fall!_

In my dream I fly
past summers and moths,
to the thistle
caught in my mother's hair, the purple one
I touched and bled for,
to myself at three, sleeping
beside her, waking with her hair in my mouth.

Along a slippery twine of her black hair
my mother ties ko-tze knots for me:
fish and lion heads, chrysanthemum buds, the heads
of Chinamen, black-haired and frowning.

Li-En, my brother, frowns when he sleeps.
I push back his hair, stroke his brow.
His hairline is our father's, three peaks pointing down.

What sprouts from the body
and touches the body?
What filters sunlight
and drinks moonlight?
Where have I misplaced my heart?
What stops wheels and great machines?
What tangles in the bough
and snaps the loom?

Out of the grave
my father's hair
bursts. A strand
pierces my left sole, shoots
up bone, past ribs,
to the broken heart it stiches,
then down,
swirling in the stomach, in the groin, and down,
through the right foot.

What binds me to this earth?
What remembers the dead
and grows towards them?

I'm tired of thinking.
I long to taste the world with a kiss.
I long to fly into hair with kisses and weeping,
remembering an afternoon
when, kissing my sleeping father, I saw for the first time
behind the thick swirl of his black hair,
the mole of wisdom,
a lone planet spinning slowly.

Sometimes my love is melancholy
and I hold her head in my hands.
Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death.
Then, I must grab handfuls
of her hair, and, I tell you, there
are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men
taking off their boots, their hearts breaking,
not knowing
which they love more, the water, or
their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.

Reality

Lies bind this house

In morning, at night lust

Envelops these cold sheets.

Need ensnares her to him

Whose steps echo on tile not swept,

Whose hands caress

Contemplating reality?

Fantasy? This freckled

Skin covering his bones and beautiful entirety.

Her monsters skin is morning skit, there

The wounds fester

Her mouth heals the ragged

Massacre of his chest.

In the night he leaves her

And her house to

Live again.

Skin slinks into her thoughts, spreading

To her hands, covering fingers,

And stretches from her wrist, skin encases her mind.

Skin attacks the earth

Of her world- the plants

She grew

One green stalk and stem at a time

Feeling the flesh of the earth, listening

For a whisper from its mouth, help us!

In her days she floats

Past people and places

To the house

Captured in life’s brutal skin, the small ones

She aches and whishes for,

To her self at twenty, walking

Near them, keeping their skin under her nails

Along a new stretch of pale skin

The birds make nests for her:

Small and large. Oval pods. Full of

Fur and wool, soft and inviting.

The fox, her sister, chatters when she gathers

She brushes her skin, over the fur

Her skin is like the birds, there for a purpose

What covers the muscle

And shelters the heart

What glows at night

And darkens in the sun?

Where did she leave her mind?

What breaks and tears the earth?

What collects men

And kills their faith?

Our of the sky

The birds skin

Escapes. A feather

Lands on her hand, filters

Down stomach, past heart,

To severed wings it heals,

Then up,

Encircling shoulders, and heard, and up

Past her ear.

What lets her disappear?

What sets flight

To her thoughts and theory’s?

She is annoyed of dreaming.

She envies the people laughing.

She envies the skin of golden tones,

Needing a utopia

Where, laughing with a different one, she realized

Under his imperfect skin

A seed of wholeness

Was growing quickly

Sometimes her life is wrong

And she fumbles with the words.

Sometimes she realizes she is alone.

Then, she must feel

In another’s skin, she believes

Are wonders, miracles, laughter, sunlight, and him

Coming through the door, his world closing.

Not comprehending

Which he wants more, the world, or

Her skin, as it shifts over muscle and encompasses his body