Dear Barber

How could I resist you?
You tucked me in and asked me what I wanted---
short on the sides, a bit
longer at the front---
but darling, you know I want the world
which I know I will not get
for fifteen euros.

Instead I am paying
to be your creation, vibrating
through your every caress, submitting
to your slightest touch, thrilled
by your blade as it grazes my skin,
my eyelids fluttering as I drift
away in the falling shavings
powdering the tip of my nose. 

Our affair is purely physical,
now reaching its climax
as you command me to lie down;
your fingers run deep
through my wetted hair,
creamy with shampoo. 

The world goes dark as I am wrapped
in your towel, your hands
now my father's hands,
firm and familiar.

Surely when the veil is lifted
I will no longer see the scattered
hair on the floor, the candied
swirl rotating for an eternity,
the blue crowds of the rue Monge
hurrying home in the haze---
are these not the bright warm lights
of home? the bathtub, its walls
still half my height? Tell me,
father, that I will not want anything
more when the towel is up, 
because I already have it all.