An Eternal Golden Braid
by David Davis
She leans forward slightly,
her yellow hair plaited in braids,
fingers typing quickly at the keyboard.
She places her subject in a dark-lit room,
his hair unkempt, his face unshaved,
as slovenly as her ex-husband.
He scratches the paper with his pen,
scattering words on the page
like garden slugs, oozing toward his hand.
She pushes him back into deeper gloom
and flicks away garden slugs
as they appear on her keyboard.
I stop her movement a moment too late.
Garden slugs glide up my pencil
and disappear, leaving one yellow hair behind.