You shouldn’t flirt
with your employer
when you are fourteen
even if he’s only thirty.

Be careful of your fingers,
he’d warn in Glaswegian
when I used the machine
to slice pastrami for the baguettes.

It was early in the morning.
If I forgot to bring a hair tie
we’d wait until the chemist opened.
He’d give me a dollar from the till.

Nothing fancy, not a scrunchie!
I could have used string.
Framed in his rusted mirror
I’d try a different style.

You have beautiful hair
he’d said once while I rinsed
chocolate off a mixing bowl.
Long and shiny, like my wife’s.