When poor women died

The undertaker would close the caskets early

And roll them in a room

To cut their hair.

My brother and I knew this.

So when they had our sister

We hid one night in the funeral home

And waited on the man

To come back from supper

With his scissors.

We heard him whistling.

He was cutting the clothes off a boy in another room.

He was washing a body.

There were other visitors, too.

The mother came with her daughter

To trade their hair for a coffin.

My brother said it’s bad enough

The rich and the living

Wearing the beautiful hair of the dead.

I knew what to do,

I knew.