On Shaving The Head

by JR Thorp

I.

                Hair grows out of its shape into others.  Baskets tarn-beds whole rivers.  The pollen swells it.  It is thickening in its rolls, warping the floors.  It must be stricken.  Men however walk across it saying How sturdy.

II.

                In this country we have the whole bowls of oil to form over the palm.  We have the splints the irons the turf-wet knives cooling in holes.  We have the loving witnesses, old women predominantly, who gather the sheaves for stopping their roofs against wind.  In this country the smudged scalp rises into the frigid landscape smelling of water. 

III.

                Loss is in the blades at the chop.

IV.

                The tender muzz of the shorn sections.  Bald of small curls the nape is strict, it enacts penance.  What remains is edible, a half-loaf of bread raised to a mouth.  The skull is a bell with rounded sides.  To feel porous is common.  To feel wind in strange areas is not unusual.  Lists of them include the mouth interior the shuck of ribs between the lungs.

V.

                A cirrus of half-grass is sufficient for all purposes.  Nip at the furze that downs the temples the arrowhead of upper spine.  Above your ears cattle graze, the vast ridged parts gather moisture.  Light reaches through the plates.  Through this thin bone somewhere else is visible.