Yaya Braids My Hair Before I Wake by Angelique Zobitz

Yaya Braids My Hair Before I Wake by Angelique Zobitz

She moves with fingers like warm wind,pulling through my coils with a hushsoft enough to pass for sleep. I do not flinch.Even in death, she knows how not to pull. Her hands smell of blue grease and sleep.She parts my hair with the spine of a comb—bone, maybe. Or memory. She hums in a key only my scalp remembers—a song older than her body, older than this grief. I stay still.A girl again, neck bent,head cradled between her knees. Each braid a tet…