Covered

Covered

Stacia Littlefield

Tempo: Adagietto con dolce

Persuaded
She wore lipstick
Bright upon her gentle pallor

Took pictures with me
Funny faces - no wig
(We were past all that, you see)

Just newborn kitten fuzz
Upon her scalp
Touch, and it vanished

For our last shot I poured out
My thick red hair
Waterfalling her baldness

A whim

Perhaps
Because she’d know it was playful, not cruel
Perhaps because
She had forbidden me to shave my own
And it was all I had

After - months, years, I could not say
Her friend told me she had left a voicemail:
How lovely it had felt - the cool, long strength of it-
To be covered by my hair

---

Stacia Elizabeth Littlefield
Poet & Therapist

Stacia has been published in And Sons Magazine, Humane Pursuits and UpFront (a publication of the Navigators). She is a therapist in Colorado Springs; Stacia finds that her writing and work as a therapist reciprocally inform each other. You can contact her at stacia@northfamilycounseling.com

Photography by Ilushka