The Weight of the Floor

The stylist is quiet, which I appreciate.

She combs a damp lock flat against my neck

and the cold steel of the shears settles the debate

about whether I’m keeping this version in check.

Snip. The black nylon cape catches the weight

of three months of growth falling down in a heap.

It’s a strange intimacy, a professional state,

where a stranger decides what I’m allowed to keep.

I look in the mirror and don't recognize the ears,

or the way the light hits the scalp, pink and bare.

It’s a small, sudden shedding of the last couple years,

leaving the floor covered in a stranger's dark hair.