Charon
- Charon
The Saudi bracelet I wore from fourto ten finally had to be cut from my wristby a jeweler out of place in the mallin Hamilton, New Jersey where he worked.Not often did he help a girl movefrom herself to herself, softlycatching the hammered gold betweenthree fingers, distracting with a questionwhen the shears went throughthe way a good nurse inserts a needle.He understands the gasp, that oneexpects pain from the proximityof two blades, the way it appears at firstthat cutting hair should hurt.Understands the phantom hangingagainst the hand, the strangenessof the bangle puttable in a box. He seemsto know how hard life will be,how often unadorned, how manynecessary operations, beautiful thingslong kept and let go, how infrequentlythe surgeons who ferry us acrosshave the gift of knowing what they do. [End Page 4]
Jasmine V. Bailey is the Olive B. O'Connor fellow in creative writing at Colgate University. She holds an MFA from the University of Virginia, and her chapbook, Sleep and What Precedes It, won the Longleaf Press 2009 Chapbook Prize. Her first book-length collection, Alexandria, will be published by Carnegie Mellon Press in 2011.
