Chenille skull above cordovan squint,
furtive, suspicious of the trim,
I stop along the arborvitae,
contemplate the dahlias
all in a line, aligned.

The hairdresser, a friseur,
plucks at my curls absentmindedly.
“Such a shame,” she says to herself.

“Because you are about to cut them?”
The question, pluperfect in tone,
as if she had considered.
Her moue told me no.

I’m not even worthy of my hair.
In the eye of the beautician,
these locks are wasted on me.

So in a fit of rime:
“Shave all,
winkle me from this shell.”

Now I sit behind the shelterbelt
watching lovers reverberate
before their love fountain.
“Please take our picture,” the girl invokes.

Invokes visions of me in gabardine,
bloody and benighted but sallow
against the saturnine bodies supine
in final repose, calm within my abattoir.