Hair, Kristin Garth

 

When Bundy’s arrested in Pensacola,

you’re five, young enough to have survived, though 

not completely intact.  Long brown bourgeois 

hair, middle parts attract evil, Mother knows,

and so it goes, long locks lopped to a safe 

Dorothy Hammill wedge.  Old enough to pledge,

through tears, to grow it back, once you  escape 

a Mormon culture where it’s always alleged 

your body is to blame — for any male-

induced indignities or pain.  Short hair 

won’t stop your body horrors, nor the jail

which holds one misogynist though there 

are others, free, who teach you prayers 

that you will not tempt them with your hair. 

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist, the author of a short story collection You Don’t Want This (Pink Plastic Press), The Stakes (Really Serious Literature) and many more books.