Taylor Garrison

Joan of Arc Invented the Bob

while standing in her father’s garden.
God at her ear, billhook in her palm. The angels
just wanting to watch. Bangs being far too dramatic
even for a teenager, no! a girl, going to war. Strands of hair
fell to the dirt, blonde stalks for the beetroots. Growing,
a means of survival. But the roses had yet to climb
the trellises, pear tree buds just beginning to cluster
like a crown atop King Charles’ head.

Do you think she saved a lock? Grasping it in her
girl-palm, kissing it with illiterate lips. If my hair-
style was God-approved, I think I would have 
a lot more confidence. Maybe she left it all
in the dirt, strands eventually winding around
the hyssop, her body returning to the earth
long before any pyre.