Donna M. Davis
Worse than dirty underwear,
it can’t easily be changed:
hair that’s too short,
too heavily bleached,
or dyed an oleaginous black
with roots as white
as a flag of surrender;
styled in a striped Mohawk,
or permed into wiry curls.
And horror of horrors,
what if it’s slicked
into a limp comb-over
with peekaboo strands
glued to a shiny scalp?
At the funeral home,
the hairdresser snickers:
Nothing can be done here.
Chewed into a weird crewcut,
the razored corpse
becomes centerpiece
for the final freak show,
trussed up in a coffin,
unable to raise its hands
and cover its shame.
***
Donna M. Davis is a former English teacher and current small business owner who lives in the Central New York region. She has published poems in the Tipton Poetry Journal, Slipstream Review, Pudding Magazine, Halcyon Days, The Muddy River Review, The Comstock Review, Third Wednesday, Burningwood Literary Journal, Poecology, The Centrifugal Eye, Red River Review, Ilya’s Honey, Gingerbread House, Aberration Labyrinth, Red Fez, Oddball, and others. Poems are also forthcoming in The Homestead Review.