#12

My Mother's Hair

when she was a baby she stood out in the sea of dark-haired cousins
like a bright-blond reflection of a star
disconcerting everyone with her smile
as a teen she posed red-lipsticked over her shoulder glancing
that famous hair curled marilyn style
you should have seen it!

as a bride in satin blond as she
the rest of the world just paled around her
then she divorced her husband and let her hair grow long
tied it in a braid dressed in peasant blouses went off to college
met my father
he released the long and golden strands
they saved him from the darkness
but agitated me when i was born
and when i could speak demanded that she wear her braid again
too much softness! too much light! i couldn't bare it
even as a baby i knew i could never be
a woman like her
never stop men on the street
and rescue one the way she had my father

i grew up dark-haired sullen like those faceless cousins
no one's starlight
no one's sun
how i wanted to shine like her
hacked off my own hair
burned it raw with bleach
it didn't work
and finally
when i had begun to accept myself
she was already growing tiny, losing hair
and then so sick she couldn't eat or bathe or walk
she didn't want the surgery
she didn't want the chemo
she would have preferred the darkness the oblivion the ashes
but even as she died
held in our arms no more rapunzel
her eyes her smile
they set the world
a-fire