At school I discover my hair
has turned a dark rusty brown
textured like old steel shavings
from the arson of the machine shop
in Powder Hollow in the Sixties.
The pain of that fire still lingers
in my joints. A propane tank
exploded twenty feet from me
as I wielded a three-inch hose,
and half a mile away my father
tumbled from bed, thinking the world
in self-pity had blown itself up.
This head of corrupt scrap metal
embarrasses me, but my colleagues
mind their manners and refrain
from asking how I sprouted
so much element overnight.
In the men’s room I try to comb
the mess, but the plastic teeth break.
How can I meet with the dean
to discuss my department budget
while crowned with such a muddle?
So I attack with scissors and learn
this muss is really a species
of steel wool, the scissors bending
in my hand. I can’t understand
such a pointless transformation
so assume I’m hallucinating,
but a student asks, “Doctor D,
where’d you get the filigreed hair?”
so I slam myself in my office
and hope I can weep hard enough
to uproot this outcrop of alloy
and render myself plain enough
to pass unremarked from one
warped dimension to another.
