Grey Hairs

I flirt almost carefully with aging, as I would

with an alien. Waiting for common words,

like moisturiser, serum, night mask, collagen,

before we smile together, having understood.

*

And across the broad reach of space,

we would exchange tonics and elixirs,

to eradicate greys, those pesky signals of time.

*

Colour isn’t as easy as seeing things:

rather just a reaction that lets light attack

a chemical in our eyes, one that grows back

within the hour, hungry for more.

A rainbow is an outright assault, but one

we love to sustain.

*

Colour is then time, and time is funny like that.

It won’t ever expire if you attack it long enough.

I want the kind of time that greets me,

with a hand from the floor.

*

The kind that comes in peace.

*

The kind that tells me that not every hair

is worth colouring, just as not every signal

is worth catching. The kind that says thank you

for the music and the drawings of your smiles.

*

The kind that leaves us then, in a burst

of electromagnetic pulses, with the answer

but also a love for the question, grey, tired,

and hungry for another rainbow.