Reflections in a Pool of Hair

You have been standing in a pool of your own hair.

You rub the hair into dirt and pick out crows 

       you’d like to lift it away.

You take off your socks.

Hand to eyes to block the sun, you look

       for someone who looks like you.

You see men in retro glasses, you see men behind 

       retrofitted glass and men

on black bikes and women with small

piercings in their sharp noses and you see their bad silver 

       nail polish, you’ve got

bad silver nail polish

and everyone wheezes. You wheeze

and the small gay men at the bar spend sunset

tuning American Idol onto two screens.

       They talk like bar glass. In their gravel, they vote singers.

There is a tingle at the back of your throat that holds 

       the phone on hold and thinks the words

                           Obama.

Obama wants to be a palindrome.

You catch yourself in a plate glass window, you catch yourself

      in the neighbor’s glass plate, you catch yourself

wondering if you look like your hair

in their windows. They put away things

as soon as you ask about them.