Although it is summer evening,

hair spray and Nescafé

smell so strong and familiar

it makes one wonder if it is morning or night.

In the tiny yellow bathroom,

the girl takes her seat facing

the wall full of tiles interlocking

like arms squaring to lift their black centers.

The mother untwists the rubber band

and a few strands snap.  She leans

her belly into the girl's spine. 

Lightly the amber brush, then

the wide speckled comb

untangle the limp brown hair.

The mother's hands smooth

the girl's skull, circle it at the crown,

wrap the red rubber band around the hank

quickly, perfectly, twice,

as if it were an entire plant of celery in her hands.

All is luminous:  approaching blonde.

 

 

Every Saturday the mother's Irish hands

pour the gold over the girl's head;

then the piercing scent of sliced lemons,

and a warm water veil

flows down from a white kitchen cup. 

The sun slants through the slats of the blinds,

falls on a thick lemon shell rocking

on its shiny pocked rind,

its soft white center slimy and spent.

The mother reaches for the slim girl

waiting on the back of the bottle.

She is my mother in a cotton housedress,

and I am the freckled eleven year old,

who, more than anything else

wants to be able to sleep over

an entire night at a friend's house,

without waking homesick in the inconsolable night:

Will you drive me home now please?

I worry that my mother is alone there. 

I have to get back to her.

 

 

I remember the brittle knots

ripped from the bristles of  those days, 

when your hands held my head

in the kitchen sink, my naked back cold and wet,

the sounds of water pounding,

my heavy head rocked slowly,

involuntarily, and looked up at you,

like it was someone else's head,

maybe your head,

turning, as it did years later

from the front seat of the car,

when you first saw your grandchild,

part black, part jew, part you--

six years old sitting next to me in the back seat,

her best dress tied with a wide blue ribbon. 

She was waiting to meet you, when,

smiling, you turned your gray head,

reached your hand back naturally to touch her,

and that same hand that washed my hair

recoiled from her nappy head like the snake

that lived under the screen porch

of your childhood where you pumped

the water from the cistern into the bucket,

the screen door slapped hard, twice

and  your younger sisters lined up

at the farmhouse sink every Saturday.

where you tied on your mother's bleached apron,

and washed them over and over

head after head, 

girl after girl

in the same white water,

careful not to waste the rain.

Honorable Mention, The Colorado Lawyer Poetry Contest, 2006.