from Cornrow Calculations
By Toni Wynn

If I see your hands flying though my child’s hair
and I’m holding your baby and the telephone
is silent and the television is not on,
can we talk about what you’re doing? It starts
out regular, then whoops, turns science fiction—
the range of your skills is fantastic. The geography
of the head—you the cartographer
negotiating roads through these thickets.
We get to art (go ahead and smile),
which is where you were coming from anyway.
Then uh oh,
you’re at math, using an ancient matrix
and twenty-first century knowledge to make bank.
I pay you well because you know how it’s done
in formulas/soulscape/exchange,
living for living.

A power move putting braids in hair. A path to beauty.
Using the tools, the braider with sweet breath
and some laughter crowns a new queen.
Power glimmers, glides into vision
for seeing more, seeing deeper. We know
the promise of infinity
and you are the Plus One.

Cornrow Calculations, from Tenderheaded: A Comb-Bending Collection of Hair Stories, Pamela Johnson and Juliette Harris, editors (Pocket Books, 2001). Used with permission of the author.