Old Ways

Saturday
night, sober. Matriarch
dead passed Easter
Sunday. The message,
lost,
finds me tonight. Grief retroactive
pounces.
I grab a lock
to fend it off—pull a curl taut.
Close eyes, close scissors/
slicing to make amends,
        to make
    a mend.
Amputated hair
recoils,
rigormortis—closing,
an envelope blown
into the wind, no return
addressed.

My cousin's fiancé
by way of Lesotho,
taught me
this ritual: death, shed
hair
not water.
        It was the sea
that brought us our pain
in the first place.