Real Hair Don't Melt

[Wjames]

Real Hair Don’t Melt


Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls 
around like a roaring lion, looking for someone 
to devour. —1 Peter 5:8


Once again Penelope is eating my tomatoes, the pink 
guffaw of her remorseless gluttony alarms me 'pink guffaw of her remorseless gluttony' is interesting, but I think may be too wordy and not concrete enough for me to really picture/touch/taste/feel the description?
from my bed and into yet another sheet 
of dripping disappointment. It’s raining I don't think you need the 'of' at the start of this line.
in the backyard, but
not out front, which makes sense 
if you think about it: dipping the oar backward
makes the boat scoot off ahead. A schooner is often 
said to cut through water but it’s more like folding, whistling 
through your gap tooth, or continuously 
braiding hair. People don’t see movies for This schooner sentence is very nice.
the kiss, we want Godzilla. Eat your heart out, Humphrey. When I was a little I like this line, but it seems like there could be some better line breaks?
girl, I dreamed of having a sweet pig to call 
my own. Griselda would be pot-bellied, with silk lashes 
like custard and she’d have a golden mane which I would pass
the hours when I wasn’t being slowly murdered 
by myself weaving into baguette plaits. To be clear, Penelope 'which I would pass the hours when I wasn't slowly being murdered by myself weaving into baguette plaits' - this is pretty wordy, I think you could say it in a way that would be more enjoyable to read.
is nothing like this dream. Her kingdom is all rage 
and jowls, a bowling over you don’t even realize 
has happened, only that the sky is suddenly  
where your shoes used to be. Godly Mrs. Helsaple,  I like this kingdom sentence.
bird-dogging her apricot 
Brown Betty cooling on the sill is famously still sore 
about her hip, and will be until 
she mercifully dies. She forgets her home address, which pill 
to take this morning, and her seventeen 
grandchildren’s names, and her husband 
passed away and it was days before 
she noticed, but a quarter or a grudge that woman 
clings to like a nose ring. I’d love to give I like 'clings to like a nose ring' a lot, nice simile. I think the two 'and hers' and then the 'and' and 'but' - a lot stuffed in to this sentence and it doesn't quite work for me. I like a long run on sentence sometimes.
Penelope a good piece of my brain, an apple ripe 
with maggots. Does my despair mean nothing 
to her, I ask with my hands spread 
like a pussy—alas, my doe-eyed axman has no word
for that which we call sadness, or anything like shame. Some days 
she is fed to bursting, some nights she goes hungry. It always goes
the same: each time I slide the shed door open, she pricks up her ears
as if expecting death and grins. Interesting ending.

I liked reading this, had to read it a few times to try and feel it as a whole.

The title made me think of a black woman's weave, and the gap tooth and braid part furthered that.

I couldn't make out one clear, whole interpretation - obviously, the comparison of the imaginary ideal and the disappointing reality is there, and the threat to the real pig hovering etc - couldn't coalesce into one clear thing for me, but that's not really an issue.

It was thought provoking and interesting, and I enjoyed reading it.