Sharon Lask Munson
Eugene Oregon, USA

Artifact

She saves her mother's hair in a shoebox stored in the cellar: long auburn tresses frosted with silver, tightly braided.

In a dream she loosens the interlaced strands, breathes in the scent of White Diamonds, runs her fingers through what was glossy and sleek.

She wakes to the memory of her own long brown hair jerked into pigtailed compliance: the tug, the yank, the jab of a barrette.

brittle leaves
underfoot
dust rising