At the hairdresser’s
I saw his recession:
pushed back like armies
of dwindled men
at their last stand;
stifled in stars
depleting of fuel,
universally shrinking.
I imagined there
if one day, a child
would be beside me
at the hairdresser’s,
noting my recessions
and their taunting tugs:
the line, vanishing
like a hackneyed magician
with obvious tricks;
the plume, thinning
as bending denim
on a toiling knee;
the youth, passing
in every follicle
turning vacant
I left with him then
and silenced the thought—
It is too much trouble
to watch life leave,
much less to depict it
spread over the self.
This was originally published in Spring 2018 edition of The Helix.
