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frida says (a translation)

i will cut off all my hair and use each strand

as another bar of music each bird an unbridled note

i want the dark birds they’re more easily read

they can use my hair as nesting threads

you have said you won’t love me without

my woman power—what protects—my veil

i say: my burden—what strangles—dead tendrils

of pleasing pleasing appeasing

follicles which have no sheen or motion

i sit on my hellish yellow chair without my hair shirt

in my man’s suit and small man’s shoes my legs wide

like a man’s smoke issuing from fingers

immaterial green bird in my lap

from Daylily Called it a Dangerous MomentFind more by Alessandra Lynch at the library

Copyright © 2017 Alessandra Lynch
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

Published in Alessandra Lynch Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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