Staying Power #161: "Salon"
An original poem-in-progress
SALON Phyllis Cole-Dai She tells me the wild cowlicks come from how I lay against my mother in the womb. I have my doubts but who am I to question someone with a blade. You have a cowlick too? I ask instead and behind me in the mirror she pats the back of her bleached-blonde head. Sure do, like every child born! as if our unruliest sprigs of hair were as true to us as our fingerprints. And, if that’s so, I wonder how much of our beginnings this woman has read while taming whorls on countless crowns, like a fortune teller who might divine our fates from signs in the lines of palms. So much depends on the first knittings of skin. My stubborn hair grumbles against the edge of her razor. From the looks of things, you must have been trouble, always rolling around, and I fill with ache for how sorely my mother still carries my tumblings inside her.
The Gentle Nudge
WEDNESDAY: Creatives’ Coffee (Zoom, 4:00-5:30PM Central, at this link)
THURSDAY: Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)
🧡 Thanks for reading! As part of The Raft, this newsletter is kept afloat by beautiful readers like you. If you like my work, please sustain it by becoming a Raft patron, buying my books, or inviting me to speak. And remember to add your 2¢ by leaving comments!
“...and I fill with ache for how sorely my mother
still carries my tumblings inside her.”
The definition of “mother” ❤️
Beautiful! I've always loved the word cowlick as a description of the swirls, some oddly placed, on my head. Thinking of it this way gives me an entirely different and very sweet feeling.