Haircut in Summer, South India

My sister-in-law cut
my niece’s hair—
a strand,
then a chunk,
for each drop of sweat
that taunted and whispered
fever—
until long black locks
were shoulder high—
then chin—
then cut close to the head.
A boy’s cut, she said
would make the fever
go away.

Jennifer Jeremiah is an English instructor at Central Michigan University, Digital Faculty Consultant with McGraw-Hill Higher Ed., and avid organic/sustainable seamstress. Her poems, often centered around the dichotomy and intersects within her multicultural Indian-American home, have been published in Kavya Bharati, Muse India, and Postcolonial Text among others. Jennifer lives in Williamston, Michigan with her husband and three daughters.