I Grow Old

I pluck a chin hair on my 31st birthday,
and it, too, is a gift from my mother,
a sign I’m as capable of growth as any
bear cub or fungi or Venus flytrap.
I hold the hair caught in the tweezers
up to light and will it with my breath
down to the tile, the checkered oblivion
below. I’m tired of making wishes.
There are traces of me all over
this bathroom, a place for my DNA
to rest. You could shine a blacklight
here and find me all over, a fallen
piece of me for every mood I have.
I’ve been told I have too many.
I’ve been told for every hair you extract,
ten more grow back, but I haven’t found
this to be true. I want to be as puzzling
to men as the ancient Greek heroine,
Atalanta, who outdid the guys and shot
the wiliest boar with her arrow, the one
they kept on missing. To celebrate
her victory, she plucked the weapon
out of the boar’s chest and put it
like a pair of tweezers between her teeth.

ξ

Brett Hanley is a poetry editor for Southeast Review. She holds an MFA from McNeese State and is a PhD candidate at Florida State. Their work is forthcoming or has recently been published in West Branch, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Puerto del Sol, THE BOILER, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She was a semi-finalist for the 2022 92Y Discovery Contest and has received support from The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. American Poetry Journal recently published their debut chapbook, Defeat the Rest.