Barberism by Terrance Hayes

Barberism

 

It was light and lusterless and somehow luckless,

The hair I cut from the head of my father-in-law,

 

It was pepper-blanched and wind-scuffed, thin

As a blown bulb’s filament, it stuck to the teeth

 

Of my clippers like a dark language, the static

Covering his mind stuck to my fingers, it mingled

 

In halfhearted tufts with the dust. Because

Every barber’s got a gift for mind reading in his touch,

 

I could hear what he would not say. He’s sworn

To never let his hair be cut again after his daughter

 

Passed away. I told him how my own boy,

His grandchild, weeps when my clippers bite

 

Behind his ear, but I could not say how

The blood there tastes. I almost showed him

 

How I bow my own head to the razor in my hands,

How a mirror is used to taper the nape.

 

Science and religion come to the same conclusion:

Someday all the hair on the body will fall away.

 

I’m certain he will only call on me for a few more years,

The crown of his head is already smoother

 

Than any part of his face. It shines like the light

In tiny bulbs of sweat before the sweat evaporates.