By Sally Bliumis-Dunn

I could sense their coveted power
from my mother’s daily devotions
to her thin straight hair, the pink foam
curlers she’d clip tight with white pins
until she looked less herself,
and more like an awkward
flower, her green robe like a stem.
Was this when I began to feel her
envy’s invisible rain
fall in every room? My head
was covered in curls.
I could slip a restless fingertip
into one of their magic tunnels
or straighten a stray ringlet
like the corkscrew cord on a telephone.
Scientists believe curls
grew from our early hominid heads
and cooled the scalp so the prehistoric
brain could enlarge to human size.
To this day, I am swept through
with an electric charge after a shower
as I stand before the mirror
in the wash of their waves,
the ghost of my mother’s envy
still rising from the tiled floor
in spirals of steam.

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Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s poems have appeared in Paris Review, Plume, Poetry London, PBS NewsHour, and the New York Times, among others. In 2002, she was a finalist for the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Her third book, ECHOLOCATION, was published by Plume Edition / MadHat Press in 2018 when it was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award.