My Mother Seeks Approval
She’s forty-two, trying on three
Of her sister’s wigs, and I’m home
For Thanksgiving, Kennedy dead,
A comma in the long sentence
Of first semester, freshman year.
She makes me turn away, eyes closed,
Until she sports a second shade,
Asking which one I like, whether
She looks good enough to be seen
In public, the hair thicker than
What she had before. “Which of these,”
She asks, “makes me look like I’ll live?”
She’s searching for the exact shade
Of acceptable, modeling
Like a schoolgirl, her eyes meeting
Mine in the mirror when I stand
Behind her, the third wig waiting
On the dresser, three styles in brown
Barely different under the dim,
Overhead bulb, the drapes pulled shut
As if the Witkowski’s next door
Might spy her bald head, me saying
“That one there,” agreeing, just then,
To be a child astonished by
Elementary magic, that
She’s smothered her diagnosis
With the cure of appearances.
*
Gary Fincke’s latest collection of poems is The Necessary Going On: Selected Poems (Press 53, 2025). The poems were selected from fifteen previous collections published by Ohio State, Michigan State, Arkansas, Slant, Jacar, Bk, Lynx House, and others.
“Which of these makes me look like I’ll live?” is such a powerful line. And in 1963 sadly it’s unlikely that she will. Few women even said the words ‘breast cancer’ in public.
Moving poem.
Very moving.
This poem makes me ache – my mother bought what was, at the time, a quite expensive natural hair wig, and shortly abandoned it. It was too uncomfortable, so despite her vanity, she went forward in turbans, berets, hats. That was about 20 years later but a woman’s hair still felt/feels so integral to her appearance. Very touching poem.
“Which of these makes me look like I’ll live?”
Wow, that line…