My Hair After You Love Me

An ESME Poetry Award submission

You tug at my curls

Brandishing waves of my hair

Until my veins

Coil and uncoil

Open and close

Trembling

After you love me

My hair holds legends

Patterns, wild

Containing gestures sun-spoken

Spirals and rings

My hair holds us

Nerves extending

Antennae

Like Michaelangelo’s beams of light

Each scent decoded

Language unfolding

Cascading

Waterfalling

Constellating

Deborah Leipziger is an author, a poet, and a professor. Her chapbook, Deborah Leipziger is an author, a poet, and a professor. Her chapbook, Flower Map, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press. In 2014, her poem “Written on Skin” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the cofounder of Soul-Lit, an online poetry magazine. Her poems have been featured in Salamander, Ibbetson Street, and the Muddy River Poetry Review, among other publications. Born in Brazil, Leipziger is the author of several books on human rights and sustainability. She lives in Massachusetts with her three daughters: her muses.

To read her poetry, go to Flowermap.net. To learn more about her work in sustainability, go to deborahleipziger.com.