Poets often have the insight to see, in a sin­gle detail or fea­ture, a com­plex uni­verse of mean­ing. Melis­sa John­son, in ​“Mama’s Hair,” fix­ates on an ordi­nary detail of our lives  – the hair that we car­ry around as exten­sions of our skins  –  to tell a ten­der and painful sto­ry about the rela­tion­ship between a moth­er and a daugh­ter. Con­tained in this small pock­et of verse are moments of care, regret, guilt, humor, ten­der­ness, ill­ness and hurt that are all trig­gered by a med­i­ta­tion on hair.

Mama’s Hair

Heavy, slick-straight, black as coal,

Mama’s hair could be pulled

over the headrest as she drove,

gathered and stroked in the back seat.

When she cut it, I thought

it was my fault, maybe she told me so.

Every year she went shorter.

It never passed her nape again.

The last time she reached out to me,

she mimed clipping my curls with scissored

fingers, her mouth determined

as I leaned to lift her back to bed.