The towering hair of 18th-century women—
part real, part not—took hours 
to concoct, and so was left as is 
for weeks until it had to be perfumed 
to mask the smell, and long lice scratchers 
used to soothe the itch. 
And yet, those belles succumbed 
to their encumbrance, maybe even felt 
stately and elegant. 

The waists of 19th-century women 
were cinched past breathing; their skirts 
were wide as the muddy streets—hooped cages 
underneath layers and layers 
of crinolines—and all the tiers exploded 
into flame near fireplaces or lit tapers. 
And yet, breathlessly they dressed, 
let their waists be crushed 
for easy encirclement by two rougher hands. 

And we mid-20th-century early teenage women-to-be 
went meekly to the salon to be bleached and teased, 
to be highlighted like gifts with silver and gold foil 
from a can, until our lively locks were tensely coiled 
and sprayed in place for the special occasion, 
and we stood stiff, afraid to move and ruin 
the still life, and tried not to show shock, 
when the hairdresser—so pleased 
with the power of his own expertise—
sealed his accomplishment with a brazen kiss 
confirming our fitness for those delights 
we hadn’t yet acknowledged we desired. 

* The photograph referenced above by American photographer Vivian Maier (1926–2009) appears as Slide Number 8 (3 September 1954) in her Street 2 portfolio at the Maloof Collection online: http://www.vivianmaier.com/

Judy Kronenfeld’s

six full-length books of poetry include If Only There Were Stations of the Air (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2024); Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022); Bird Flying Through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017); Shimmer (WordTech, 2012); and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths (second edition, Antrim House, 2012), the latter which won the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize.

Her third chapbook, Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! was released by Bamboo Dart Press in June, 2024. Her hybrid memoir in essays and poems, Apartness, was published by the Inlandia Institute in February, 2025.

Judy’s poems have appeared in four dozen anthologies and in numerous journals including Cider Press Review; DMQ Review; Gyroscope Review; MacQueen’s Quinterly; New Ohio Review; Offcourse; One (Jacar Press); ONE ART; Rattle; Sheila-Na-Gig; Valparaiso Poetry Review; and Verdad.

Her stories are published in The Madison Review, The North American Review, Literary Mama, and other magazines; and her creative nonfiction, in Under the Sun; Hippocampus; Inlandia: A Literary Journey; and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, and has also been nominated for Best of the Net.

Judy holds a Stanford PhD in English and has criticism published, including King Lear and the Naked Truth (Duke, 1998). She is Lecturer Emerita, Department of Creative Writing at UC Riverside.

Author’s website: http://www.judykronenfeld.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

Additional poems by Judy Kronenfeld in MacQueen’s Quinterly that were inspired by Vivian Maier’s photographs at the Maloof Collection online:

⚡ Confidence in Issue 23 of MacQ (April 2024), after Maier’s Slide Number 22 in her Street 2 portfolio

⚡ Crumpled Man on the Sidewalk, 1953 in MacQ-19 (August 2023), after Maier’s Slide Number 39 in her Street 2 portfolio

⚡ Two Little Girls, Face to Face in MacQ-19 (August 2023), after Maier’s Slide Number 7 in her Street 4 portfolio

⚡ Freeze in MacQ-16 (January 2023), after Maier’s Slide Number 29 in her Street 1 portfolio