Locally Grown Words discussion

Beauty Lessons at 12

Movie magazines stacked as tall
as teased hairdos, unlimited quarters
for Cokes and candy bars
and titillating talk wafting like perfume
suffused summer afternoons
in my aunt’s beauty shop. In a lull,
a cousin would whisk me into her whirling chair,
twist my long hair onto hard rollers
and banish me to the kingdom of hot dryers,
sometimes brandishing eyebrow tweezers,
telling me Ladies have to suffer for beauty.
I looked around but there was no pain,
only the castanets of high heels,
the swishing of skirts, the gurgle
of a good time as the women in pink smocks
made gentle fun of husbands and children,
swapped recipes for casseroles
whipped up in avocado-colored kitchens
and passed on what Thelma said Erma
told Vivian over the backyard fence.
Talk often melted into laughter
or whispers, but strength and sex swirled
like clouds of Aqua Net
and cast a spell over the husbands
who poked their heads warily in the door
and jiggled their keys
but never entered.

http://www.slipstreampress.org/behind...