Hairstory

It lay on the floor,

a lonely black hairpin in the bathroom stall

unsure of its place.

It did not leave the head of the Black woman,

her head flowing with long weaves

or from the young Scottish girl,

her honey blonde hair a thick braided bun.

It did not drop from the head of the Chinese woman,

her ebony hair straight blades of vertical symmetry,

or the woman wearing the fashionable purple hat

hiding her alopecia.

Loosening the knot of my chignon,

I realize that it was I who dropped the hairpin–

detached, dislocated, remote from its own memory–

on the floor of a now empty bathroom stall.