Beauty

6 9 R B E A U T Y S A R A W A L L A C E I went to the stylist and asked her to cut o√ my heart so she palmed my skull and firmly tipped my head down and red pieces of my heart fell all around me, dusting the tiles, the tips of my shoes, my knees under the black shroud. The shop door was open and I could hear children ordering melon snowballs from the cart on the corner, overhead trains, calls to prayer. It felt like long decades, but then she spun me around so I could see the back of my neck in a tiny mirror. I couldn’t understand that this was me but how much lighter I felt and I thought how much easier it will be for me to get things done – skinning tomatoes over the steaming sink, sorting my dead mother’s photographs – without all those strands of my heart in the way. ...