KM Kramer
I AM MY OWN RAPUNZEL
with the towel knotted and draped
atop my head. Like the ends of tresses,
the terry cloth edges fringe
my waist. I toss
my head of towel-hair—
feel the long locks sweep
past my shoulder, down my back.
The girl looking back in the mirror
looks nothing like the skinny girl,
dark-haired in tufts as sparse as a newly
seeded lawn. Nothing like the girl who wears
a baseball cap each day of second grade
to cover her hoed scalp, to contain
the smell of pus. Before the mirror,
I twist to see if my back looks pink
again with flesh. Instead: yellow-brown
patches of scabs. Hot pink where one
has fallen off. Or where I pick it,
sliding the shower-softened dead flesh
to free the new underneath.
The sink vanity I sit on
cools the back of my thigh. The
mirror fogs, helping me create the
filter of how I look
three months after the accident.