POEMS
Karl J. Shapiro
HAIRCUT
0 wonderful nonsense of lotions of Lucky Tiger,
Of savory soaps and oils of
b~ttle-bright
green,
The gold of liqueurs, the unguents of Newark and Niger,
Powders and balms and waters washing me clean,
In mirrors of marble and silver
I
see us forever
Increasing, decreasing the puzzles of luminous spaces
As I turn, am revolved and pumped in the air on a lever,
With the backs of my heads in chorus with all of my faces.
Scissors and comb are mowing my hair into neatness,
Now pruning my ears, now smoothing my neck like a plain;
In the harvest of hair and the chaff of powdery sweetness
My
snow-covered slopes grow dark with the wooly rain.
And the little boy cries, for it hurts to sever the curl,
And we too are quietly bleating to part with our coat.
Does the barber want blood in a dish? I am weak as a girl,
I desire my pendants, the fatherly chin of a goat.
I desire the pants of a bear, the nap of a monkey
Which trousers of friction have blighted down to my skin.
I am bare as a tusk, as jacketed up as a flunkey,
With the chest of a moth-eaten camel growing within.
293
But in death we shall flourish, you summer-dark leaves of my head
While the flesh of the jaw ebbs away from the shores of my teeth;
You shall cover my sockets and soften the boards of my bed
And lie on the flat of my temples as proud as a wreath,
