Jazzanine

The following is a creative piece I wrote while completing my MFA. Justine The daughter I do not have is named Justine. Her name aligns with the proliferation of names beginning with “J” that pepper the leaves on my family tree. I picked out her name long ago, almost since I could read, and I am hopeful that when she grows she will be judicious and wise as her name implies. Justine looks at me with golden eyes. I plait her long, brown, kinky-curly, fine hair into two skeins, one over each shoulder, the way I wore mine when I was a child. But I won’t turn the braided ends up and tuck them into rubber bands so that they look like the blunt stumps of docked dog tails, the way my mother did me. No. I will spray the loose ends with water and let them curl as they may. When I have more time I will sit with her, mark out her scalp with a pink comb, and make many long braids, so that she appears to have a mane of thin twined ropes of brown. I will watch her braids fly around her head as...