My Mother’s Hair
My mother’s hair always escaped
from under her red kerchief or the
hairspray
lacquered on for control and the hair
often went
dancing in a night club in Manhattan
even when she was in labor with
one of us. You can’t control wildness.
My mother lay, legs askew, baby
coming, never having to push as Dr. Leroy
removed us with forceps while her hair was
dancing at the Stork Club and her waist, so
thin
turning sideways she could have been
an exclamation point or a bent spoon.
Her hair, curled in the heat and the moist
music, was happy as rhythm was the
clef of curl and the smoke, the smoke,
smoothed her out and persuaded her
life could be El Morocco and the possibility
of finding Mr.Rich.
Even after she found him she
worried he wouldn’t stay. He told her to
make
her hair softer. It was always
touch and go but he made the rules.
Older, her hair curled around nurses
who loved her sweetness while her children
longed to hear her truth.
You see, life was a silken tendril and a
Frigidaire,
TV dinners and flowered dresses with waists
cinched by men who knew how to lead.
Scissors hadn’t been invented and music
could anesthetize freedom. Hair could go
anywhere.
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