Lynn Lifshin
	More Hair   In college I wore it up, was accused of someone taking my test for me   relatives were always smoothing it down, putting pins in it, as if  it was some strange night beast, animal, dark weeds to cut back   When I was six in the cottage I combed it straight in the wet sun but it didn’t stay, it was like   fat, like my fat thighs that looked thin in the late afternoon shadows   they had their fat way in the mirror in the damp room though I wanted to be skinny with long straight hair,   dieted until I passed out, put Curl Free on it and just got it orange, as plastic as a broom.   In those years, people used to laugh, sneer hippie. I tucked it up into itself for in-laws, bosses, English examining committees and superintendents, knotted it tight as a hair ball inside a cat, a pearl waiting, nests for some thing inside. I   hated not being able to let it down, hated twisting it, twisting myself into what was neat, small expected   I was sorry I wasn’t Indian, wished that it would grow long enough to hold out buildings, as if I could climb out into my new self that way