Ode to Teased Hair
I spend a lot of money to look this cheap, Dolly Parton twanged
in her white suede mini-skirt and fringed jacket, her lips
a gobsmacking vermillion, her wig teased like a halo in San Marco.
When Covid bodies piled up in freezer trucks for months,
two mourning doves swoosh-landed on my windowsill daily,
feathers puffed up all bouffant, beaks locked, half-cocked in lust —
A memory of myself with a teased mop in high school shot up until
I shot it down like a drone. Boys wore leather in our blue-collar zone,
girls teased. Kids across the highway went to college and France.
Then again, Dolly Parton, born in a one-room cabin on the banks
of Little Pigeon River, whupped her dirt poor life into shape by singing
about dirt poor luck — but could she be smart if she couldn’t talk right?
Through quarantine I studied Giacometti, O’Keefe, Cezanne, Basquiat.
One day glancing up from Dustheads, I saw the male dove flutter
onto the female, almost fall off, but hang on for five seconds.
To shame a people call them dumb. Mock their accent,
their English. Dolly learned business from her illiterate daddy.
As a child, I wanted Christmas doves to lift me out of the zone.
Dolly sends millions of books to poor kids, calls it Imagination Library.
Don’t teach them their letters, the masters taught, or you’ll be sorry.
My daddy loved books: They take you where you can’t go.