Curls

I will give you curls,
my grandmother said,
just like the Princess,
whose photo you saw

in a magazine, and so
I gave myself over to
her hands, and the
process of taking the

fine, ever so straight,
hair, and making it
fall in silken curls,
just like the image

I held in my hand,
and yet, once it was
over, and I was set
free, and the hair

had dried, there was
no silken curl, just
a mop of frothing
busyness, bursting

around my head,
and even the hours
spent rubbing and
rubbing, against the

carpet, could not
soften or tame that
wild, determined
shock of hair. Only

as the weeks passed
did it stop mocking
me, and slowly fall
from grace, to

become again, what
it was only ever
meant to be, laying
forever to rest, the

dream of being,
in some small way
a Princess with
soft, silken locks.