Good Practice

Sitting Small Character down for a hair cut.  Unlike a doll, you can cut his hair over and over.  You can close your eyes and make it grow again.  Changing his hair is good practice.  Imagine having to do worse things.  Say letting his girlfriend charge out of their shabby trailer home.  Letting his liver swell.  Letting his back stoop.  Cutting off his unemployment check.  At least here, right now, at the beginning you can have compassion.  You can wrap a hot towel over his face.  You can splash his thin cheeks with bay Rum and stand him upright, pulling the strings tighter and tighter, so he stands at his full height with something like dignity.

 
 
 

Rosalynde Vas Dias is the author of Only Blue Body, the winner of the 2011 Robert Dana Award offered by Anhinga Press. Her poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, The Cincinnati Review, West Branch, The Pinch, Laurel Review, and elsewhere.