Poetry Friday - The Collected Works of Susan Ramsey

You know the drill. It's Friday. Friday is, in kidlitosphere time, meant for poetry. Me marm's a poet. Poetry Friday. Easy peasy. Today's was published in The Hiram Review, #63.
Due to the constrictions of Blogger, lines do not necessarily appear as they did in the original publication.

Consider Hairs

Your nose and your ears keep growing as long as you live.
Think of it: Lilian Hellman forced to tote
that great zucchini, Auden’s unfurling ears.
Cute is a survival mechanism;
consider harp seals, ask parents of two-year-olds.
So it's no wonder the carapace of age
frightens us; almost certainly we will not
develop sufficient charms to compensate.

Not for hairs, so often embarrassments.
These aren't the secret hairs of adolescence:
pubic disruptions, smooth armpits suddenly becoming
caverns dense with Spanish moss. Those shames
are secret. No, the hairs of age are public,
chins and moles for women, ears for men.
Eyebrows you could braid or bead.

But why
should only those hairs flourish which are unwanted?
If a wise providence chooses not to encourage
six brave hairs arching lonely from ear to ear
across the gleaming scalplands, well, all right.
But why couldn't the forces of disintegration
have evolved to encourage bourgeoning eyelashes, too?
Just as cheeks grow softer and softest, why
couldn't eyelashes come to resemble reeds
fringing still dark pools where lions drink,
grow heavy as Shetland ponies', as giraffes',
finally closing of their own soft weight.