by J.P. Celia

(In honor of Women’s History Month, which begins today)

Washing my hair, I dream of barefoot girls
Shampooing theirs, and what assortment falls
From female heads performing expert twirls
Within sea-themed and fogging bathroom walls.

At first must drop a very simple thing:
A ribbon left unscrambled in the back,
Which, with warm water, slides off like a ring
And hits the tub, though hits without a smack.

Up next come objects far more weighty, weird.
The coins and stubs created in the flight
From home to work, and which had disappeared
In chignon buns baked golden-brown and light.

Next teacups (dozens), novels, one spiked heel,
Are loosened where they nestled and set free
To land on the enameled concave steel
As wide and buoyant as a manatee.

And last come tumbling from each soapy crown,
Those silly boys, those fatal mismatched men,
Who’d disappointed, or who’d turned them down,
And must be washed out every now and then.