The Kitchen Cut

My niece, all bangs and tear-stained face,

her fringe a crooked, terrible trace

of hurried shears. It pulled me back,

to Mrs. Henderson's kitchen, that same old track.

I was seven, sat on newspapers, cold,

the smell of perms, a story untold.

She snipped and talked of garden peas,

and I just hoped to God, on bended knees,

that when she spun me round, it wouldn't be

that lopsided horror, for all to see.

But it was. A jagged line, a crooked shame,

a permanent awkward in my name.

I touched the stiff, wrong ends, then cried.

Some mistakes, no matter how hard you tried,

just clung to your head, a fringe of dread.

Still feel the itch, the wrongness, in my head.