Poets often have the insight to see, in a sin­gle detail or fea­ture, a com­plex uni­verse of mean­ing. Melis­sa John­son, in ​“Mama’s Hair”, fix­ates on an ordi­nary detail of our lives — the hair that we car­ry around as exten­sions of our skins — to tell a ten­der and painful sto­ry about the rela­tion­ship between a moth­er and a daugh­ter. Con­tained in this small pock­et of verse are moments of care, regret, guilt, humor, ten­der­ness, ill­ness and hurt that are all trig­gered by a med­i­ta­tion on hair.