Alyson Dayus

ON FINDING MY FIRST GREY HAIR

I wonder about the upset in the follicle at your birth.
Fatigue from the daily grind, or the last family gathering
I remember; tables groaned under viperous
politeness and stale sausage rolls. Perhaps
I ran a hand through, uncoiled you
like a fishing line, ready to catch my young color.

When you colonize, I decide, the missing pigment
will be absorbed by my life. I'll tap-dance along
Hadrian's Wall, leave my ass-print on a canvas
called Contemporary Art. I'll have somnolent
Sundays, but Friday nights will be wild;
I'll embrace tough, tattooed fledglings,
stiff hedgehogs who don't know they're smart.
I'll have 'peace' on my limp bicep, jettison firm breasts
but won't put on a bra.  Grey mane crazed
like Medusa's, stark naked, I'll worship the earth
beside the bandstand in Battersea Park.





Alyson Dayus is a feminist academic by day, and a feminist poet by night. Previously she was a dancer, but gave up after realising she couldn't see past her false eyelashes. She has previously been published in Lily, Poems Niederngasse, Rock Salt Plum, Sein und Werden, Verse Libre Quarterly, and Wicked Alice