Once again in front of my fracturing
toothpaste-spattered mirror,
my lashes alarmed by the shadows
that seem to have nested
all winter under my eyes. My skull:
haloed by the flickering of
a half-dead bulb that trapped the radio-
active tagmata of honey-
dew moths that flew somehow inside
its glass dome without cracking a sliver.
Hacking at fists of my hair with a rusty
left-handed pair of scissors
so I can buzz my head more easily,
I have to stop myself halfway
when I realize I’ve just accidentally
given myself a pretty good haircut.
Larry Narron’s poems have appeared in Phoebe, Eleven Eleven, Permafrost, Whiskey Island, Berkeley Poetry Review, The Boiler, and other journals. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Larry lives in California.
–Background Photography by Ed Wojtaszek