Haircut

I sit on the dock for a haircut and watch

as summer spreads out, relieving the general,

indiscriminate gray, like a mouthful of gin

spreading out through the capillaries

of my brain, etherizing everything

it is too painful to think or say,

as I dangle my feet in the water,

like bits of a man. On the goldenrod,

Japanese beetles are holding an orgy.

The green snake throws off its enameled skin.

And somewhere — invisible as the avenues

of the dead — a little door is left open for love,

pushing and pulling at each of us, as the water

pushes and pulls at my young gray hairs.

Henri Cole
The Paris Review
Number 176
Spring 2005

Copyright © 2006 by the Paris Review.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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