Mother said, “You have to suffer
to be beautiful,” as she stood with
Aunt Goldie, the beautician, who

Dabbled Tony Permanent Liquid
onto limpid brown locks. At five,
I endured as she pulled, twisted

My sticky strands around pink plastic
curlers. Gagging at the stench, sensing
the horror, I catapulted down towards

My vision of escape. In my inner realm,
wrestling vinyl cape, clamps, combs
I fell falling free from the swivel chair

Through the floor to a precipice so
dazzling white, it took my breath along
with my discovery of a rolling river where

Suffering no longer defined beauty, rather
it dissolved into an oblivion of mud, of love
melting me. I became the watery earth and

Music swirled around. Native mother, standing
at the fork of the muddy river, staring out of
rhinestone spectacles. I implore you — please

Don’t drown me with the hurt in those dark brown
eyes behind the stars. Stay with me as you have
done as in cold, moonless nights you crept,

Moccasin-footed into my mountain tent. Your having
heard my cries, knelt tenderly to smooth my tightened
brow: hummingbirds atop your wide soft shoulders

Hastening your passage with weightless white wings.
And you came, never asking how I could have forgotten
you of all beings. I watched you advancing as I balanced

Thigh deep, shoveling wet dirt from the velveteen bottom
of your river into my hungry mouth. In your vein-lined hands,
you held kernels of corn and yellow batter, kneading it into

The shape of the crescent moon. I longed to learn your
languid art, yet hesitated to beg that you impart knowledge
of your liquidity— magic of the kernel lost to me.