A STRAND OF YOUR HAIR

It's pressed inside the leaves of a book -
a collection of Swinburne's poetry.
It's safe there.
Nobody ever reads Swinburne.
It's brown for most of its journey
though one end is slightly darker
where it' s been uprooted from the head
and the other, lighter,
from doing the sun's business.
And it will never gray,
unlike its later progeny.

Silly romantic notion,
keeping that thread of hair.
Is there anything more
unrepresentative of
your moods, your looks, your nature?
Besides, to an outsider,
it could be from a dog,
a horse, another's comb.
It has only me for witness.
And Swinburne too of course -
though he' d prefer it be
a tress of Christina Rossetti’s.

So I keep my deceptive strand,
this thin deluded measure.
Pressed between roundels,
it's a loving trespass in another's poetry.
Plucked from your shoulder,
already beyond you,
and yet it captures, captivates.
I open to the page,
stare at it from time to time.
Never so near has Swinburne come
to being read.

-- John Grey