! Cutting Edge Poem by Michael Shepherd

Like a sharp knife
cutting through a bitter lemon
into red lips dripping

the hairdresser takes my pleasantries,
chops them with a cruel hand,
throws them back in pieces in my face

snip snip into blond hair, brown hair, black, grey, white,
what heroic restraint, condemned
to a lifetime’s cutting, and not
to plunge the scissors into a spinal cord…

this little girl who cut her finger with
her mother’s scissors perhaps
to try to explain how they cut her heart
her love that would grow like hair

how can I know the heart
of this woman who cuts my hair
so expertly.. snip, snip..