The Awful Ease of Tides Poem by James Thomas Stevens

for Arthur Sze
I.

Somehow precise and unquestionable,
the cut of the Chinese man's hair.
Never before this certainty,
I consider the decision of each strand.
The diameter. The angle.
So black, the way it appears,
crashing against the hard corner of his jaw.


II.

I consider the darkness.
You are appointed court photographer. Consider this picture.


III.

My small face is red behind a bath towel curtain.
I watch a funeral that is taking place next door.
So black, my dog,
hurling himself against a chain link fence.


IV.

The casket is lowered and I am removing rusty pins
from the grease on the window's aluminum track,
along with strands of hair.


V.

This is pressing.
I mark it with an asterisk. Black and large.


VI.

A vague feeling,
pressing itself against a snowfence in my mind.
Like a threat, I view the way you cut your hair
as if it were a history of something small.