Red Hair

After the chemotherapy had been abandoned,

in the last weeks before your death,

your hair started to grow back,

in tufts around the edges

of your immaculate skull.

It returned in the most incredible red,

almost clown red,

Lucille Ball red,

where red hair had never grown before.

We joked that after the fortunes you spent

on various tints and dyes,

trying to achieve that perfect shade

of auburn, somehow the colorants

had entered your bloodstream;

we imagine red #5 on a mainline

to your hair follicles.

But after everything, we knew

it was only your essential wildness,

your untamed nature, the spirit,

the part of you (the most of you)

that never settled down,

which came into ascendancy,

finally triumphed,

coming out of your head in this final splendor,

even as the rest of your body

shut down and slipped

out from under it.