A Little off the Top (Poem)

I roam the earth in search of The only man who knows how to cut my hair properly, Neville the Human Pencil Sharpener. I stare with bedraggled longing at each barber’s window In my longest bad hair day— A dies irae of frizzy tangles With no blessed relief of night. I welcome the enveloping blackness, A blissful undiscernment of The hedgehog that has settled on my head And yet is part of me. But the dark is not yet come— I stand revealed to all in my dishevelment A gawky, stark clown, uncombable. Neville, whom I encountered but once, Was the only one to assuage my split ends, To tame and shape my weedy growth So that my head resembled a human one. This chance meeting occurred on a bus, As did the impromptu haircut. Immediately thereafter my life improved— I was suddenly popular, successful, stylish— And I could skirt the ignominy of public transportation. This glow lasted as long as my haircut retained its neatness. Now I ride the buses endlessly with pilfered transfers, Seeking my benefactor, my catalyst, my stylist To touch up and remedy what nature hath put awry. I am beginning to sense that there is no Neville, That my island of contentment was a dream Meant to make a life such as mine bearable. But I have grown to enjoy buses again, And perhaps that is a start.