Rubbing The Porcupine
I’m in the chair again after two years.
The barber’s a stranger whose body
nudges mine as he comes close.
His razor buzzes through swaths of hair,
leaving a clear path in its wake.
Long, brown-grey curls gone. His blade
licks all my head, tufts fall. I’m shorn.
As if fresh from confession, sins at last
forgiven. Like a bad friendship finally
ended, or one washed up, and there’s no
more growing. Like a love lost, a split
ending, a falling out. How this man
touches, tilts, plays with my head,
relieves me of all these accumulated inches.
Now that a pile sits on the floor like and
a dearly-loved pet that’s been put down,
come here and rub my newborn crewcut.
It’s prickly like a resurfaced porcupine.