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I am the monument they melted into a million quarters


By Christie Ann Reynolds


O my hair a beacon for their mouths. A brown electric shag of cuticle and O-- how conceptual my hair. They stand around me saying:  she is a girl. She is a diabolical wicked witch. She is a wig on the purse of knowledge.  I display it for your father. I bounce it with a racket. I float  it on a slope of streaming water to prove its bouancy. I snap crackle pop it in my mouth like a savored candy until you salivate,  until your mouth yearns too, for a taste of what I suck. I put on a hair puppet show.  I beehive it, braid it, slick it straight and smack it down with a brush until  it floats and poofs and you the audience ooo and ahhh: How positively shiny. How lovely. How american I look in my do. I will pile a pile of hair in the center of an enormous kaleidascope and your one  good eye will focus its good green love and I will be a conceptual hell for pretty girls. For all the pretty girls. I will be your doll that talks walks pees. Your daughters will love me. Your daughters will not be daughters without me.

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