Wrist Deep

Everyday I’ve picked at them,
pulled out the loose ones
that they may not teeter down,
embarrassed at their falling out
like friends that simply don’t call,
just up and left to another city
or worse, another country – or wander
aimlessly my face, stuck in an eyebrow,
balanced on the bridge of my nose.
Once a week or so, though,
I pull a screwy one, twisted up
like coastal roads on road maps.

Someone told me once that those
are the dead once; dried up, brittle
sucked in; that those ones don’t grow back ,
which makes me very sad for the ones left over,
survivors that one day
reside only on the thin belt around my head,
which also makes me very sad; not the part
where the hairs start to seem
like people out living their friends
but the part where I am bald and not dead.