Equinox Haircut

A handicapped woman in her wheelchair
waits with me at the haircut place in the strip mall.
She bends over her book and nods off a few times.
She has thin blue legs, bent wrists, a face in a red rash,
and pretty blond hair. She is waiting, I think, for her ride.
She seems more content than I
but I am not tempted to contrast myself
with her mood or her body all that much.
I take her in, with the poorly dressed cashier
with the purple streak in her hair, and a bad bird tattoo on her shoulder,
with all the hair on the floor
and the last humid day of summer.
I am an older man with hair in all the wrong places.
Ursula offers to trim my eyebrows and I agree.
You know how things come around, someday
I will be trimming hair or taking cash for it
in the wrong getup, or all bent with dying legs
waiting patiently for help or asking a man
if I can cut back the wild hairs of age.

I may start drinking again
but this time all of life,
whatever is flowing, whatever is growing,
and learn
how very gently to style it.