Haircut with Beard Trimmer

By halves I do not do things,
so this windowless bathroom becomes
a musky masculine-smelling salon:
towels rolled, toilet rolls stowed,
a starling-blue facecloth draped over
the thin radiator, warmly, to sculpt
around your neck. You reverse cowboy

the toilet seat and I set to work.
An untrained Brutalist, gently hacking
unsubtle gaps in a burgeoning scalp
where blue veins, like curious dolphins,
threaten to approach the surface.
I am the assistant playing games

as the tired master eats some lunch.
And yet to hold a head heavy with duty
whose curls tighten with weariness . . .
The fuzzy loops of you fall to the tiles
like duck tears, or rain against a window,
muted, as all things are, in those
first few bright moments of wakening.