When Getting a Wax from Marisol

she tells me the story of giving herself 
a Brazilian when she was nine months pregnant. 

"Girl, you should be the fuckin’ President," 
I want to say, but instead I stick with 
"No, you didn’t!" 

"I did! It went on forever! I was like..." 
—she mimes tunneling up— 
"where's the top of this thing?!" 

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Jennifer L. Knox is the author of four books of poems. Her next book, Crushing It, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. Her poetry has appeared four times in the Best American Poetry series as well as in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and American Poetry Review. The New York Times said her 2015 book, Days of Shame & Failure, “hits, with deceptive ease, all the poetic marks a reader could want: intellectual curiosity, emotional impact, beautiful language, surprising revelation and arresting imagery.” Her non-fiction writing has recently appeared in The Washington Post and American Poetry Review. She is at work on a culinary memoir.