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  • Grey Hairs
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Grey Hairs

Angela McSeveney

As I sleep my scalp labours on
weaving glittering strands
from the dead fibres of my hair.

Never so noticeable when I was a brunette,
now they drift everywhere
like frost-rimed leaves.

Pinned to my cardigans by static
they are wrought metal jewellery,
a filigree of fancy embroidery.

They cling to the bristles of brooms,
the insides of vacuum cleaners,
clog the shower stinking of marsh gas.

I have heard of birds’ nests being found
lined by hanks of it: our council guidelines suggest
mulching it down on the compost.

Then there’s the pounds of skin flakes
sinking annually into the mattress
to keep the dust mites going.

It’s not at the very end that we return
to the earth we came from.
It takes us back in instalments.


Angela McSeveney

from Slaughtering Beetroot (Edinburgh: Mariscat, 2008)

Reproduced by permission of the publisher.

Tags:

ageing hair the body
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Angela McSeveneyb.1964

Angela McSeveney was born in Edinburgh, brought up elsewhere, returned to the city to study in 1982 and has lived there ever since. She is the author of two full collections of poetry, and two pamphlets.
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