LENGTHS

When I come in, my friend is in the middle
of giving her boyfriend a trim. Chair drug into the kitchen
where the hair won’t get stuck in the rug.
Once she introduces us, he can’t seem to return
to how he sat before, turning now to watch me talk
while she attempts to straighten his head.
No mirror. He must trust her. How much
does she trust him? He wants to know
if I’m always this blond(e).
It’s natural. His head jerks back
and she cups his chin, making sure
his sideburns match. Her little scissors
old and heavy, loose at the hinges,
but they work. She asks if I’m next,
as if she hasn’t watched my hair struggle
for years to catch up
with hers. I cut her a look.
Just a shave, then, she says, cutting me
a look. Bitch. He says he likes
my goatee. See? I don’t need to be smooth
for a man to notice me. This one’s obviously
never needed a woman
with tits. Does he get tired,
chopped up every time
he wants a public kiss? I ask
if he’d ever grow it out. She says it wouldn’t
suit him. I know what that means:
he’s never tried before.
I lay a thick lock in his hand. Natural.
Her? She’s a bottle,
lightens and flattens hers,
knows what she has
to do to be perfect
contrast to a man’s inky mop. Hers is a look
I’ve worked hard to gain, a look she’s always had
to maintain. She clips him shorter
and shorter. The two scraping
blades wobble, coming apart, and her nails
rake scalp; she’s anxious to check
every end for split, as if she could stop
short each single one.
I’m about to touch his face
when she asks if I’ll sweep up.
Under the apron, his hands
seemed to reach for me, now, uncovered,
they lay still. He looks back and forth between us,
useless, turning beneath her hand, a tree’s roots
holding his head like a ball of dirt. Yes,
I’ll sweep up. A pile of ends
just beginning to bend. A dark lock slips
into my pocket, then,
I empty the dust pan into the trash.

THE LANDLORD

A cube of cheese can be swiped with ease,
Jerry says like some creepy-ass
nursery rhyme. He hooks his finger through a fresh
JIF jar and dabs a glob on a mousetrap.
If he makes a joke about nut butter, I’ll kill
myself, I swear to fucking
god. He pries the jaw back
and slides the wood block into the hole
at the base of the basement wall. I have a heart
for animals, haven’t been bothered by
squeak or shit, but Jerry’s the landlord.
He knows one chewed wire
can burn his way of life to the ground.
I don’t argue. I rent
with everything I’ve got, and Jerry’s reduced
my rate to possible.

I close my lips around his still-smattered finger
and suck it clean.
He watches me. I don’t
look at anything.

Tomorrow, the trap is also clean—
licked so lightly, it hasn’t gone off.
It’s defective, Jerry says. He flicks the trigger
and it bites the shit out of his finger.
I almost fuck up and laugh.
Instead, I get hard
watching the blood fill his face.
He curses the thing to hell, stomps upstairs
and out the front door.
I reset the trap carefully, generous with the butter,
lick my own finger, and watch.
I need to see him do it.
I need to see something
get everything it needs, and live.

SUPERSTITION

Black cat cuts my path—
I don’t care. But a black plastic
bag blows across
my headlights, I swerve
into the sudden
parking lot of Decatur Liquor,
my dead uncle leading me
back to his favorite bourbon, my body
a glass he still needs filled.
I don’t know about possession,
but I’ve seen a man float
by on his charm and good hair, supernatural
grin excusing him for breaking
furniture, faces, laws. I won’t bow
out of a game of Bloody
Mary, but don’t make me look
for my face in the portrait of Grandpa
toasting the family
business. I’ll be the first to walk
under a ladder, but I won’t
climb that one. Nothing spooks me but men
who look like me and think God
placed them high, men
who get to climb the world
with one hand
toting another drink.

Miss Jackson Newbern (they/them) is a poet from Georgia. They received their MFA from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas and currently live in Austin.