Doctors’ Offices

More visits to doctors’ offices

Highlights magazines are

my favorite

I can always find all

the hidden pictures

because it’s for babies

I can never find real things

people always say never

judge a book by its cover or

things are not always

how they seem but if that’s

true no one around us is

real nothing around us is

true everyone and everything

must be a lie who is lying and who is

telling the truth

who knows why

Clara’s hair is falling

out someone who knows

isn’t telling everyone else

who is that someone and why

won’t they speak up

Hair Dream #7

One day at school, everyone stares at my hair. Some people point and laugh. Others look so horrified they turn away. When I look at myself in the mirror, there are worms all over my hair, white worms. They are eating up all of my hair. From far away, it looks like I’m wearing a white hat.

Bare

At night before Clara goes

to bed

her head is finally bare

no beret

no hat

nothing

I want to stare at

her bald spot that keeps

waving at me

I want to stand

on a chair over her head

and touch the short stubbles

I want to take notes while

I’m touching

put my pen behind

my ear

a researcher at

a science lab

but I try not to look because

she always snaps

stop staring

sometimes I catch

her touching the

hair with a few fingers

and shifting her hand as

if she’s itching

sometimes I watch her

when she doesn’t know I’m looking

the little hairs call her hand like a

foghorn she can’t

see but can always hear

when she sees me

I turn away

Fingers

My sister keeps her fingers off

her hair around my mom

as if she knows it will

only remind my

mom of the hair

the hair that never

seems to grow back

that refuses to grow back

the hair uses

the head

the head uses the

hair they need each other want

each other everything is about the hair

take your medicine my mom

says eat these special vegetables

drink this special tea

use this new shampoo

it’s always the hair

about the hair talking about

the hair while not talking about the hair

looking at the hair trying to

pretend to not look at the hair I

can’t help it I can’t stop

thinking about the hair no one

says anything no

one really ever

says anything about anything

I hate the

hair and its

not growing I hate the little

pieces I find everywhere they

poke me in my

dreams like a cactus

Hair Dream #8

I lean over and carefully pick out the little gnats in the baby monkey’s hair. I must be a zookeeper. I untangle the baby monkey’s hair. Her cute face winces as I pull. I’m excited because this is my dream job. I hear clapping but when I turn, I see my classmates outside of the fence looking at us and laughing, taking photos. I look down at my stomach that is covered with fur. I try and read the signs near the fence, but I can’t read the words anymore.