"Moma"

Laced tributaries formed
a watershed of dark
hair, hung like thread
at the base of a loom,
down my back.

Your short, papery fingers
pushed the blonde from your face
with nails like clean plates, encircled
by skin pulled back like fins
on the belly of a fish.

The foggy bathroom smelled of lemon.
The juice ran slick and clouded
with distended, lucent-yellow fibers
squeezed from a plastic bottle
you kept in the fridge.

My wavy, wet hair based,
and sent to play in the yard
by your Lowcountry voice,
I would swing between the willow
and sugary-sweet mimosas,

until the sun
offered enough gold
to wreathe it, like yours.