Hair

Sarah Russell

A second poem published today by Writing in a Woman’s Voice.

Hair

1
It’s a woman’s crowning glory, Mother said, 
and she brushed my hair a hundred strokes 
at night, rolled it in rags so my long curls 
would bounce below the barrettes, wound them 
around her finger each morning. She pulled 
so hard my eyes watered. I hacked each curl 
off with kitchen shears when I turned twelve.

2
“Don’t ever cut it,” he said, and his hands 
were tender beside my face, then drifted
through, beyond. Mother’s mantra 
became my own. I brushed until it gleamed. 
Once he washed it for me like men do 
in Hallmark films. His fingers tangled, 
but I didn’t cry since women never cry 
in scenes like that.

3
The doctor said it would fall out, but the clumps 
in the shower drain startled me. I went to a salon
and told the girl to cut it off, right down 
to the scalp. She cried and I cried and she wouldn’t 
let me pay.

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