Margins If I got the story straight A missing nail once cost someone his crown Served him right But that’s just one side of the coin: What happens to a realm When something extra crashes the party Like, for instance, A hair? “A hair? Are you kidding?” You’re probably saying to yourself “No, I’m not” It wasn’t curled or grisly looking Or especially long Just an ordinary hair Only blonde And in a bowl of chicken soup It might have gone unnoticed Altogether Stretched out, however, on my pillow Without a care in the world It was impossible to miss And even harder to explain I was bald at the time And it didn’t match my girlfriend’s aubergine Well, the cold war turned to hot Which speeded up the race to end it all Instead of losing by a nose As I had planned I won Just by a hair ________________________________________________________________________ Emanuel E. García, Sinking In, One Hundred Poems, 2013 |