Millays Hair

Ann Townsend
New York Public Library, Edna St. Vincent Millay archives

Because Norma saved even the grocery lists,

it was no surprise to find a lock of hair

coiled and glued loosely into the scrapbook,

crimped and rusty, more weird

and alive than any calling card or photograph,

letter, erotic or otherwise, sweeter

than the candy kisses fixed upon the page.

I shouldnt have touched it, but in those days

I was always hungry. Despite the rare books

librarian lurking, I set my thumb against it.

Weightless, dusty, it warmed at my touch.

By 1949, all the grocery lists affirmed

the same fixations: Liverwurst, Olives, Cookies, Scotch.

Liverwurst, Olives, Cookies, Scotch, penciled

on squares of insipid paper. By 1950,

unsteady on her feet; by years end, dead at the foot

of the stairs. As I placed the book of relics

back into its archival box, a single

copper wire fell from the page,

bright tendril on the table. I lifted it,

casket of DNA, protein, lipids, and still Titian red.

Really, was I wrong to swallow it?