Antique Haircut Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Filthy lies are unstoppable from
The holes in my flesh,
The decanters of weevils turning around
Like the striped sign in a barber’s shop-
My sister is an angel they hung in
The store window, brilliant snow,
And when they take her down she will
Be just as beautiful-
I almost forgot who I was, when
I remembered I was lost, another
Car leaking gas from the bullet holes
Stolen in the blushing hibiscus-
The viaducts of dentists dissecting my childhood,
Like an amputee I take my childhood with me,
And down into the easement of mostly teal
Gentlemen we refuse to look,
As we catch sooty brook with our cane poles
In the easy greenness of the afternoon’s veil,
Where the earth is still crumbling like the
Crust of a blueberry pie.