Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
Can I touch your hair?
One-hundred thousand tightly sprung coils
Waiting to jolt into action.
Unruly ringlets of wafting coconuts,
Burning of platypus jaws
Making the operation, of altering who I am
Without scorching the scalp, delicate.
Suspended like soaked willow trees on tiles,
Everything becomes consumed.
Night shades day, and I become wrapped
Up in thick strands, undistinguishable.
Can I play with your hair?
Corporate suits demanding tame mane
And smooth strands of Samoan miss.
Chemical imbalance creating subtracted chunks,
Tangled. Broken bristles gently collapsing to ground.
Deciding hours later that it is waterless, parched.
Frizz, kink, mountain of conditioner. Upside-down fluff.
Steam boat machines shapeshifting with heat and hot comb.
Track team fingers sprinting through knots, stuck between hurdles.
Blatant refusal to be ignored, shoving its way past conventional crowd.
Bobby, you pin nothing in place. Hair tie always breaks.
Can I touch your hair?
NO!