Ellen LaFleche

AUDREY'S WIG EMPORIUM

It takes a moment for Estella to understand: drape-framed
mirrors instead of windows.

Estella sees endless wig-heads in the beveled glass. High
brainless skulls on plastic necks.

She watches a hundred Berts wandering the room. They pat a
blonde beehive wig, pull back, stung.

Audrey's perky fingers can't keep still. They take off
Estella's turban. Let's see what we 've got here, honey.

Estella stares at the carpet,
the gray nap cropped tight as Astroturf.

Audrey brings a cap of yellow corkscrews. You would look
cute in these oop-de-boop curls.

Estella walks out bald.
Leaves her purse, her turban. Endless
reflections of her husband Bert.

Ellen LaFleche has worked as a journalist and women's health educator in western Massachusetts. She won the 2006 Poets on Parnassus Prize for poetry about the medical experience. The winning poem, "Snow White Faces Terminal Cancer", was published in Pharos. She has poems published/ forthcoming in Alehouse, The Ledge, New Millenium Writings, Patchwork Journal , and Words and Pictures Magazine , among many others. She struggles daily with Type II diabetes. The poem above is taken from her poetry collection, Estella, With One Lung.