five strands of hair

‘As a Black person and a woman I don’t read history for facts.
I read it for clues’ – Alice Walker, Elle, October 1989 p.45

i. parting

I began clenched teeth,
tight steel combs and
mother’s fingers –
slippery Dax heroines
pulled out the need.

Plaited and stocking-capped,
beside her head
the pungent edge of frying hair,
smoked brown-paper twists,
greased and combed.
Prevention is better than cure.



ii. clueless

Her hair is straight
no twists or crosses

a wiped clean page
it doesn’t read.

Curled out
no markers to ancestry –

that we have bad hair
that we have coolie in the family
that it tough and don’t grow – no
see
her hair it’s straight,
it doesn’t read
easy.



iii. twists and turns

Fact: Your hair is an integral part of your skin.
Fact: There is good hair, and there is bad hair.
Fact: Hair and scalp diseases were common amongst enslaved Africans.
Fact: A chemical used to straighten African hair is called ‘lye’.
Fact: Natural African hair must be processed to make it manageable.
Fact: Black women spend a major part of their income fixing their hair.
Fact: Straightening hair made the first U.S. Black millionairess.
Fact: Black women need the hairdresser more often than white women.
Fact: Different styles of plaiting and braiding marked rites of passage.
Fact: Unkempt hair is a sign of madness.




iv. a foreign head

She fetched
all through Sunday-best dinner.
Twisting and looking,
the question hovered round.
A well-raised Bajan girl,
she was too-too polite
until outside, bursting, she could
ask mummy-friend bigwoman dawter,
‘You is a rasta?’


v. revert

Still shouldering a Black Star Line,
he said no.
“Doan vex the children hair with foolishness”.
His own balding masthead,
crowned with ancient mystery books,
the deep science
of pale-faded Egyptians –
the African headdress
bestowed away on me.