Grandma Lolly’s Scalp
By Jacob Butlett
In the chirring cast of the bathroom bulb,
you grip electric hair clippers, cordless
& encased in plastic, hard & silver,
above your scalp, that liverspotted field
of hair wisping like parched pampas
grass or wheat, sun-bleached.
As I watch you from the hallway,
you slide the clippers around your ears,
each buzzing stroke reaping wiry strand
after wiry strand, but you don’t stop there,
shearing every curl off your head,
each pearly scrim sifting to the floor—
a mist of keratin around your feet.
Your first chemo appointment starts
next month. At night, I hear you
talking to Mom about the wigs you’ll
wear but seldom will, opting for a lilac-
scented pink baseball cap someone
buried in the back of your closet
years before the diagnosis, as if
that person knew you’d need it
for the long, skeletal hours ahead.
Jacob Butlett (he/him/his) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated author with an M.F.A. in Poetry. Jacob’s creative works have been published in many journals, including the Colorado Review, The Hollins Critic, and Into the Void. In 2023 he received an Honorable Mention for the Academy of American Poets Prize (Graduate Prize) at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC), sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. In 2025, Aldrich Press will publish Jacob’s debut book of poems, Stars Burning Night’s Quiet Rhapsody. Learn more about Jacob on his website.
Artwork Source: “Rain Grass, Blue Grama, #4,” Linda Lynch. 1994. Harvard Art Museums.
The Turning Leaf Journal 