Cherry Tree: Groupon Cut & Dyes by Marianne Chan

Groupon Cut & Dyes

In north Florida, my hairdresser asked
aaasawhere I was from, and I told her the Midwest.
Where are you from-from? she asked. I passed
aaasaon telling her: The Nation of Repressed

Emotions. Instead, I said I’m from West
aaasaof here. She paused. California? she asked.
Further west. She holds my hair against my chest
aaasaIn north Florida, my hairdresser asked

if I was adopted, snipping a vast
aaasaamount of my long black hair from my crest.
Your English is great, she remarked, and asked
aaasawhere I was from, and I told her the Midwest.

Not adopted, but thank you, I expressed.
aaasaI became worried: How long would this last?
This woman! And my hair looked a mess.
aaasaWhere are you from-from? she asked. I’d passed

another salon. Should’ve gone there, I amassed
aaasaregret. My hair will look bad, at best.
Turning the chair, I saw my new do, gasped!
aaasaTelling her: The Nation of Repressed

Anger. She promptly asked: Is this a test?
aaasaI paid and drove away and wept, at last,
with the radio on. Finally, I could rest,
aaasaI’ll grow out my hair, dye it back to black.
aaasaaaasaaaasaaaasaIn north Florida.

*

Marianne Chan is the author of All Heathens from Sarabande Books, which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, West Branch, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati.

Cherry Tree appears under the imprint of the Literary House Press, the publishing arm of the Rose O’Neill Literary House, a cultural center with an almost 50-year-history of promoting the arts. Washington College undergraduates participate in all facets of the production of this print journal, though professional writers serve as genre editors and fill most senior reader positions. Although the journal is still growing, Cherry Tree has already received national recognition. Poems from three of its six issues have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Poetry (2016, 2017, and 2020). Poems have been reprinted on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and have appeared in the Orison Anthology. Prose has been listed as “notable” in Best American Essays and appeared in Best Microfictions (2020).