In the Kitchen, After Dyeing My Mother’s Hair

In the In the Kitchen, Kitchen, After Dyeing After Dyeing My Mother’s My Mother’s Hair Hair

GINA TRANISI

I wash dishes by hand, thinking hard I wash dishes by hand, thinking hard about what she calls, the long haul about what she calls, the long haul of losing your mother. She fixates of losing your mother. She fixates on fading—how people vanish from on fading—how people vanish from intersections, corner stores, entire intersections, corner stores, entire neighborhoods despite years spent neighborhoods despite years spent growing up, growing families, growing growing up, growing families, growing sick of themselves before reckoning with sick of themselves before reckoning with forgiveness. Her friends are full forgiveness. Her friends are full of cancer, laughter, joint pain, of cancer, laughter, joint pain, memories of my mother, once memories of my mother, once young and sipping margaritas, young and sipping margaritas, salted wind sifting through her curls salted wind sifting through her curls like my hands when she admits, I cannot like my hands when she admits, I cannot reach the back, holding fade-defying reach the back, holding fade-defying box dye in warm mahogany, hairbrush, box dye in warm mahogany, hairbrush, and plastic gloves towards me— and plastic gloves towards me— sacred offering I will miss sacred offering I will miss years after she has gone years after she has gone from view. from view.

Gina Tranisi is a Program Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective (NWC) and lifelong Nebraskan, she works closely with the youth slam poetry festival, Louder Than a Bomb Great Plains. She leads writing workshops inside correctional facilities through Writers’ Block, an NWC-sponsored program that brings creative opportunities to incarcerated writers. She was a finalist for December magazine’s 2020 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Young Scholars in Writing, One Magazine, and other journals. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

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