Lizz Murphy — Poem 24: I was a red-haired woman

I WAS A RED-HAIRED WOMAN

With thanks to Michael Crane

I chewed pencils until I was told I would get lead poisoning except when I had a rotten tooth and the chewing relieved the ache then I didn’t care carbon pencils left purple stains on my lips my father brought them home from work until one day he didn’t come home at all When I see a shoe mender’s last I think of him the last time I saw him he was a closed coffin If you call me by the name I was as a child I likely won’t answer you People think I dye my hair I show them the grey underneath to prove I don’t even though I really don’t care and for a very short while I did Henna is quite a nice word it is soft I’ve never chained myself to a gate I could’ve joined in a protest about funding the arts at Parliament House but I was on an art project there at the time and I needed the money

Inspired by The Red-Haired Woman Buying a Cigarette Lighter at the Brunswick Street 7-11 published in The Best Australian Poems 2015 (ed. Geoff Page, Black Inc. 2015).