Delilah 

She says
let gravity take over,
my legs skinned-chicken splayed.
she has a mouthful of orchid heads.
a sheet of wax paper on my bed. 

Delilah came to my room 
several nights ago, mistaking 
me for Samson. she sleeps 
during the day beneath 
the box spring. i feed her
bowls of cheerios & she searches
my shelves for scissors
when she thinks i'm not looking.

metal dusk: for inspection &
curiosity. we trade. she asks
me about my insides & i tell
her about the cervix. about how
doctor's reach for it like
a door knob, all pink & turning. 
she gives me beads that taste
like sugar cubes, puts them
in my mouth with two fingers. 

she only cuts off 
small batches of hair at a time,
keeps the strands in ziplock baggies.

i tell her she can take more
but she insists she's not cutting,
not again. i pretend to be
asleep so she can work.

let gravity take over she says
just like the doctors say every time.
standing at the foot of the bed
put your feet together
gynecology: the study of legs.

taking orchids from under her
tongue & placing them inside me,
gentle, as if i were a cork board.
i inhale, i learn to let these
kinds of things happen.

laying down next to me she
asks what a man is doing with 
my anatomy & i don't answer at first.
she rests her head on my chest &
draws circles on my forearm.

i lie & say that i have been samson
& that the stories of my hair are
lies, that my power comes from 
my cervix, unreachable & dark.

she promises not to try & steal that.
before crawling back under the bed
i kiss her forehead & tell her that
she can always stay here.
i take the scissors & throw them
out the window. 

in the morning she is gone.
i take out the orchid heads
in the bathroom & lay them on 
the sink along with
each baggie of hair, staring up at my
they ask what kind of body i have.