Years before Mother shut herself
in the bathroom with Clairol Ruby Rage

and a flask of double-malt, a man
was stealing blond girls from yards.

She threatened to darken our hair,
but took us with her to work instead:

we clicked teeth on articulators
and judged their bites, twirled rope

wax over the blue flame
of the Bunsen burner. Mother pulled

our hair into knots, but some escaped
into the fire. Singed, reeking, it curled

into itself like a thirsty field of wheat.

– Katherine Fallon