from vision to vision…
Caucasian as I am,
the lower half of my face looks like an Afro,
except the color used to be red and brown;
now it is mostly gray.
In my teens and twenties it was
a frizzy translucent pretender.
Now it asserts itself,
thickly masculine.
It doesn’t so much cover my face as extend it.
Dreadlocks would diminish its circumference, and
likely hurt, and feel disrespectful to Rastafarians.
Still, the kinky thing is mine.
I should be able to dress it as I want to.
Still enough rust to be set off
by tiger eyes at random.
If I wait much longer
I’ll need quartz or granite.
My wife will probably say
the dinner crumbs are quite enough.
Once there was no beard.
The hair on my head was dazzling in the sun,
practically no pigment at all.
The crewcut let my scalp burn,
though it didn’t blister like the rest of me.
And me, I ran like hell, punched into the breaking waves,
dove right in with eyes wide open,
never mind the salt stinging.
I wanted to see.
From white to white.
From burn to burn.
From waves to waves.
From vision to vision.
~ Wry Welwood
late 20th century,
re-edited May, 2021.