Christy Prahl

Barbering

When he cuts his own hair, it always needs fixing. I do this
agreeably because he asks for almost nothing. How I ache for him
to ask me for something. A friendly word. An ibuprofen.

He uses clippers that hum like a prop plane, like we might
be going somewhere, my sweetheart and me. The lake.
Or Corpus Christi.

Maybe the next life, where we solve the riddle of how we got here.
We talk as I level the back of his hair. Can he hear the rain
on the roof? Did he ever find his red wool hat?

He follows with the buzz of the vacuum, which always makes us both
go quiet and apart. I find clumps of hair in the corners like tiny mammals
gray with age.  

I pick them up between my fingers, knowing his body
has grown and outgrown them.

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Christy Prahl is an Illinois Arts Council grant recipient and the author of the poetry collections We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press, 2023), With Her Hair on Fire (Roadside Press, 2025) and Catalog of Labors (Unsolicited Press, fall 2026). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her past and future publications include Poetry Daily, North American Review, Arkansas International, Midway Journal, CALYX, Salt Hill and others. She was a featured poet on the Hive Poetry Collective podcast and two of her poems have been scored by post-punk musicians. She splits her time between a small workers’ cottage in Chicago and refurbished Quonset hut in southwest Michigan. More at christyprahl.wixsite.com/christy-prahl.