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Jill Barrie

Combing My Hair

Operation Desert Storm

I use a purple Afro-pick
with the phrase Navy is for Real
inscribed on it, a gift

from a barber with three fingers
on his scissors’ hand.
A case of combs had come

from a cousin in recruiting.
When I stand before
my mirror, ready

to attack my tangled locks,
I see dozens of well-groomed
soldiers with purple picks

stowed safely in kit bags
as they attack. I see
the enemy striking back.

Dining at the Art Museum

The hand that labors
to her mouth

fed me. The smile
that flickers on her lips,

relief. The cough
that racks her brittle frame

scars me. The air
that finds her damaged

lungs, I breathe.
Sunlight spills

through a window,
stains our cheeks.

Mother and daughter
in perpetuity.

After earning an MFA from Vermont College, Jill won first place in The Louisville Review Annual Poetry Contest. She has been a finalist in PSA’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award and Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in American Literary Review, Cimarron Review, The North American Review, The Southern Poetry Review and others. More recently, her work can be found in Tar River Poetry, Italian Americana, Flint Hills Review, Hole in the Head Review and Stone Canoe.

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