My father’s hair appears, embedded in
curious foxholes: On my knuckles,

elbows, nostrils, unmentionable foxholes.
Follicles prowl in the night-they must-

from the corners of my hairline,
they transplant themselves. The ritual:

I look in the mirror, same as ever,
then find one, two, three black hairs

somewhere none had been before. I go to war
with the change. Scissors, straight razors,

tweezers, sugar wax, weapons
when I pull my tingling forearm from under

her brown body, waltz, groggy to the bathroom
pinch, pluck, pull until I recognize my body

again. The old feeling from my childhood
ceases, the feeling of my father’s hirsute arm

against my chest. She says, drinking wine
for breakfast and dribbling it, burgundy,

down the front of her white robe,
that I ought to let the resemblance inside

since he was an outsider for so long.
Next week, I will meet my father

at Polito’s Deli. One unceasing eyebrow
reaching across his forehead,

wooly fingers gripping-firm a cup of coffee,
he will look hard at me, relieved,

for his own sake that I have gone so far
to honor the covenant: We look nothing alike.

Never will.