To the Bramble and the Briar: Poems

The Barber

e Barber From haircut to haircut, over the years his barber slowly grew more blind and more dangerous to the long looming ears of the president who was snipped here and there, drawing blood as Lincoln quietly sat without flinching to save the feelings of the one behind him cutting away diagonals and tangents of hair Mary would try to fix at night, although in the morning there he was—the man she loved, a dark shock of flames sticking up and the beard a shallow scorched ravine of bramble and briar growing over bones.  ...