MLR

The woman in front of me at the post office says
she's mailing out her granddaughter’s hair. 
 
For pageants, she explains to us all.
She wins wherever she goes with that hair!
 
My grandmother always sent me beanie babies—
what is it like, instead, to get hair? 
 
The only wigs I wore were for Halloween. My mother
did my make-up for studio photos, my hair:
 
one year, ... Read More

No one would want that clinic on their lawn,
delivery room aglow in fluorescent light
where, since it belonged to a university,
each specialist had students who observed
the half-successful epidural drip.

The monitors that checked his vital signs
alarmed the nurses, who believed he might
be starved for air. They started agitating
to prep his mother for a Caesarian,
but no, the wires had ... Read More

On July 26, St. Anne’s feast day, for as long as I can remember—though when I was younger, I did find it a bit tedious because I preferred to be out roller-skating early in the morning—Mother and I would go to Mass at St. Michael’s, our parish church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Definitely wrong side of the tracks. My Wellesley ... Read More

Carl walked down the POD to his cell. His flip-flops—inmates called them shower shoes—alternately popped against his heel and slurped when his feet pressed wet foam against the stone floor. He moved slowly to minimize the noises, which embarrassed him. Showering in general unnerved him, although he had no need for worry. These weren’t open showers like in the ... Read More