“Are you sure you
want to do this?”
The mamma says,
and the little girl nods her
head in the affirmative,
“yes, mamma, do it!”
she squeals,
her dark hair
falling over her
eager eyes,
and the mamma
takes the scissors
to Barbie’s full
blonde mane,
the scraps of
plastic spilling
like a waterfall
over the kitchen
table, and that
night the little girl
dreams that her
Barbie is whole
again, with long
locks down to
her pink Barbie toes,
in the morning
she tosses the doll
to the back of the
closet, a tomb
for the imperfect,
a sepulcher for
the substandard
