On the sex appeal of silver-haired women

This is not your ordinary grey hair
twisted into a thick argent braid.
This is the courage to keep from dying.
Beauty as she ages holds onto
the secrets of womanhood.
I am aroused by her spirit and shine,
imagining the untangling of tresses
as we tangle together, unhurried
with all the hours of a lifetime.

Larry Oakner is the author of two books of poems, including SEX LOVE RELIGION (Blind Tattoo Press), The 614thCommandment (under his pseudonym, Eleazar Baruch) (Blind Tattoo Press), along with a chapbook, The Canticles of Private Lucius Swan, (Pen & Anvil Press). His poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Red Eft Review, Red Wolf Press, WINK, The Oddville Press, Tricycle: Buddhist News, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Lost Coast Review, The Long Island Quarterly and many other publications. Oakner lives in New York.