Poetic License: ‘My First Haircut’

Joe Pacheco
After her second child was stillborn,
my mother made a “promesa,”
a promise to the Virgin that in return
for a healthy male child,
she would not cut his hair.
Alas, I was that healthy male child
and for the first four years of my life
my hair grew below my shoulders
just like a girl’s and to make matters worse
it was silky and curly
and the women in my family took turns
combing it and creating elaborate hairdos
or making ringlets
with pieces of paper bags
and sighing “que ricitos tan lindos,”
(what gorgeous little curls)
then sent me out to play
with the roughest group of four year olds
ever assembled on the East Side of Manhattan.
It had been tough enough with these guys
when I was three and hadn’t learned English yet
because no one but my brother
spoke English at home,
but English mastery could not deliver me
from the misery caused by groups of boys
yanking at my curls
while chanting “Ding dong bell”
and calling me Josephine.
The curls and long hair had to go
and for the first time in my life,
I delivered an ultimatum:
“Cut my hair or I won’t go out to play”,
I demanded tearfully in Spanish.
They actually hired
a studio photographer
to come to the house
and take the picture of me
sitting on a high chair
just before the great shearing.
As I remember, I cried a little,
each woman took a snip
and saved a lock,
the men sat in the parlor
drinking beer, my brother told me
it would be safe to play outside again
and my mother
would not come out of her bedroom
until it was over
and couldn’t look at me straight
for the longest time.