haircut

It was one of those family discount haircut stores 

where you get the next of four or five hairdressers.

She was petite, in her early 20’s likely,

tattoos of something on her upper right arm,

short-cropped hair dyed orange,

a small ring in her left nostril,

and introduced as Megan,

and I wondered what I had gotten into;

then, without my saying, she told me what I wanted,

correctly, and commenced to move deftly 

through my shock of wild Einstein hair,

snipping in neat layers with scissors and comb

as snowy tumbleweed rolled down the dark-blue cape;

and my remark that she seemed a pro

set loose a flow of self-revelation

of wanting to get into graphic arts like her dad

but ending up a hairdresser instead,

practicing on her dad till she got it right,

and how this was art too, wasn’t it?

And in no time she was done.

Dropping scissors and comb she picked up her hand-mirror

and flashed back a perfectly-sculpted cut,

saying this was part of her,

and I’d be taking part of her with me;

as I unhooked my jacket and reached for the sleeve,

I looked back to see her sweeping

my hair-clippings into a delicate standing pile

and ever so gingerly picking it up with her fingers

and placing it down under her big-mirror work station,

as if it were a cast-off secondary creation,

just as perfect, from me to her.