Hair Thief: Kleptotrichy*

The hillside cupped my back 
with warm grass and stillness, 
lulled me with rock dreams and rooted self
until the quiet took me gently in 
the palms of sleep.

A jab at my head startled me.
We are not used to birds standing on our faces, 
or having them pull out our mammal hair, roots and all. 
I tried to understand the narrow toes
standing on my forehead 
impossibly gripping my skin, 
the beak reaching brazenly for another hair.

As my breath burst loose 
the bird flew up with strands of hair 
floating between wing beats, 
ethereal in the backlit sun and my disbelief.
This hair theft, this kleptotrichy,
continued and my nap turned 
upside down 

to watch the bird’s breast 
rise on my forehead, on tip-toe with each tug, 
launching with feathered wing 
to line a nest and return, oh surprise—and return—
despite my laughter, my breaths.

I would share my gray hairs now
to have such a moment again, 
to have such good thievery, 
if only as a reminder of what courage
can embody. What valor is – 
to steal hair from a sleeping mammal.

*Kleptotrichy: a bird stealing mammal hair