Clipped

It’s been several hours and …

No, not bald yet,

         No, Cancer sticks are not a part of this

Since I’ve last rest my eyes on you.

To tress, to shear, to clip, to frock, to slit, to trim, to mow, to snip, to erase a past I’ve attached to long. To wipe away the image so many pictures now fib to show

Smooth, like skin, yes, skin it is

In the mirror reflecting this time and space, Yet who stares back,

I can’t rememb…

         The eerie similarities, of cheekbones, eyes, ears, familiar yet alone, perhaps a lie to the pupil’s been played, perhaps a dream.

         Smooth, to touch, rough to sew, the picture of change’s touch

To move, slowly cross the screen

Changing grins upon imposters face

Lips pucker, purse

Brow rest and raise

Then words begin to come from this; perhaps I’ll eventually find a way

Yet he who stares back,

         I couldn’t begin to pret…

                  Sure a pinch might remind in me,

                           But it’s like the brain’s been transformed to a separate shell, 

         Of a stranger I now must get to know

The way Antigone lost her kinship

         I must pyre forward and grow to embrace the face replacing the face erased. 

Perhaps not as incendiary, but burn shall the effigy of memory

Bowing head, to extent I can,

         Not chin to chest

                  But dipped in anon,

Another place, to roam but once again

         Silence held

As the remnants lay

         In my arms

On my skin

         All about me now

Clean up

         Will infuse

Tear with hair

         Lots of memories to be cleared

Into a bag

         Out to the street

For some relic scow will come to claim

         The snap decision

                  The possession that encompassed

                           The only identifier of me.

Late last night

         I found myself

                  With scissors

                           Then with razorblade

                                    Lemon soap was all I had

                                             To build a lather

Just yesterday

         Hair fell, beneath shoulder

                  Long and proud

                           But after the facial change

                                    Where beard to neck, thick and alive

                                             Took 13 months to build

                                                      But only took 1 hour to destroy

         And so, the hair had to leave as well. 

                  Now blending is not something you say, I now look like everybody.  Perhaps this will make me more connected; perhaps it will make me more alike.  Maybe this will make assimilation cleaner, maybe it will open the channels, flood the ravines.  Or it might just close the port, make the sounds once heard, ambivalent yet deafening.