Jennifer Wheelock

Miss Helen at the Hair Salon

The shampoo is my favorite part:
the lusty suds murmuring
in my ears, hands trained in the art
of scalp massage finessing locks

of hair; the big dip in the lip
of the sink where I can hang
my neck like a limp sock and slip
into an almost-sleep, lulled

by the drone of dryers, rattle
of chatter and foil. I find a shock
of peace here where we battle
dark roots and damaged ends.

And today I get Miss Helen:
been here fifty years, sweeping hair
and folding smocks and towels, telling
women nothing about herself

while hearing endless stories
of affairs and Prada shoes.
Word is she takes the 6:40
bus each morning for an hour

and she’s pushing eighty two.
She’s a legend here, and I think
how this will be the best shampoo
in history, but then she starts

to wash my hair. She digs her nails
too deep and yanks the tangles out,
lets soap get in my eyes, assails
my skull, so that I think she sees

me as another person’s ghost:
her more-loved little sister or
onerous mother, an impost
on her daily life whom she used to

bathe and dress in her modest house
somewhere on the bus route. Or maybe
mine’s just another head to douse
and be done with, and her feet hurt.

When I go to pay, my head clean
and aching, I hear someone ask
“Where’s Miss Helen?” Then: “Last seen
napping in her bathroom stall.”

I wonder if she dreams off-duty,
perhaps of love, perhaps of hair,
and, doubting the usefulness of beauty,
only trusts the pain of getting there.

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Jennifer Wheelock’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently The Peralta Press, Atlanta Review, The Emily Dickinson Award Anthology, and the online journal Blaze. She was second prize winner in the Art in the Air Poetry Contest and a semi-finalist in the Steel Toe Books competition. Her poem “Feeding Francis Bacon” appeared in the book Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem: A Guide to Writing Poetry, in the chapter on formal verse. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lot of dogs.