even after i’d been
pulled from her womb,
my mother found another
way for me
to take from her.
when i was three—or maybe four—
she taught me
how to hold a pair of tweezers,
and sift through the
rows and columns of her hair,
to find silver in the dark.
then i realized, with horror,
that she was the crane
weaving beautiful silks
from her own feathers.
i had to ask her
to stop making me pull her hair,
and she was sad.
that was when she started
to pull it out herself.
but now i know not to worry.
that, on average,
everyone loses approximately
one hundred hairs from their head
a day. now i sit alone
at night, thinking about
my mother, by herself
searching for silver in the dark,
while i pull out my hair.
