Woodland Fauna

Perhaps she presumes a trifle too
much, this woman with her peculiar
manner, her fey hints at communion
with foxes, her garb betraying I know
not what, a leather fedora set atop her
leathery, striated face. Her voice
conspiratorial as though we, like her
represent a strata of the woodland
cognoscenti, gifted in the languages
exchanged between animal species
imbued with the deep knowledge of
their habitual natural cultures as
creatures of the wild. Nodding sagely
beside her the now-grown child I
had taken years earlier for a son, 
whose presence now clearly, despite
a decidedly ungendered visage, is
that of a young woman whose crowning
glory sweeps at great length behind her
the most luxurious strands of hair
imaginable, in fact a magical feat of
astonishing proportions. My own 
recent assignation with shears and
double-sided mirror cropping my head
to close-shorn non-glory a dull contrast.
Yet she complains of its weight even
while whipping the gathered strands
in a swirl that only a fabled creature
of the woods could display, and I bite
my tongue in favour of silence; not for
me to suggest that obvious solution.