Maiko Kikuchi, Springmill, 2018 (Artist Website)
Paper and acrylic paint on colored paper
She said I have to go back. She said she can’t
miss more work—that’s another one!—with glee
and despair she said it, raking my head
with that tiny-toothed comb. I sucked the cherry
blow pop she bought to hush me up, sucked it
to the nub. I loved my hair, loved to tilt it,
skim my waist. It was an Olympic year—
Dorothy Hamill skated in her shiny bob (really
a bowl cut) framing, ma said, her cherub
face. She dragged me to the salon (really
a neighbor’s swivel chair swaddled in plastic
down in the basement). Skate of scissors
picking the ice—I tried to escape, no more
swishing—she’ll have the Dorothy Hamill, she said.