The Afterlife of Cut Hair

On the last day of middle school,

I wait for my turn at the barber, watching

his delicate hands cut a girl’s hair like he is

preparing salad for dinner—graceful brilliance

striking cut, click, cut, click. I wonder what

the hair feels to be cut-clicked from his hands.

We hack and rack, quell and fell, hew

and unselve the trees, Hopkins wailed

for the poplars in Binsey.1 Once I thought

the barbers sold cut hair to make

Bombay Muttai.2 So I kept a close eye

on them like a kingfisher, not pay to eat

my own hair. One day a kingfisher

sat by my pond and I hit him with a tennis ball

on the leg. Off-balance for a second, he then

arrowed past the trees. That week Kingfisher6

flew us to Chennai. When I asked what airplanes

had to do with kingfishers, they gave me a special

kids’ meal for free. It tasted like uprooted hair

poorly fried in a barber’s soothing gel.

Notes:

1- See the poem “Binsey Poplars” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

2- Bombay Muttai is a Sri Lankan variety of cotton candy.