Old Poem: Hooked

This poem was also accepted into Still Life with Fruit (1991).  It was actually the lead-off poem to the publication. 

Hooked

He leans well over the rail. 
The shouts from the street fade 
as he listens intently. 
Across the city, he hears a zipper 
worked down until the skirt hits the floor.
He returns to the white tile
of his own bathroom. 
He pulls a hair from the drain, 
stretches it between his fingers 
until all the kinks have disappeared. 
His ear, pressed to the window, 
can pick up no new sounds 
unless the low breathing is her asleep.
In the bed, on his back, 
he looks into the light, 
trying to see inside the strand. 
He finally bites it tenderly in the middle, 
watches it curl again, 
places it under his pillow. 
He will dream tonight.


This is all imagined rather than being something that happened to me (particularly while in college).  Though on rare occasions I ended up with women's hair in my clothes after washing them (I was living in a large house that was 5 men and 3 women at the time) and that probably worked its way in there somehow.  One of the RC Writers mentioned that they had known I could go "big" in my writing (though much of it seems to me to focus on the resolutely personal), but this was the first time they had seen me go "deep" to the nearly microscopic level.