Shaving

I can’t remember what it was the first time round,
soap lathered with a brush, or foam whipped
from a can into meringues; in either case,
I stood before myself, smearing it over my face,
Dad directing me from the door until my youth was stripped
smooth as the cabinet mirror wiped of steam—
with careful strokes, first, from the sideburns down
to the fold in my chin, then up under the jaw
with the scratching sound one makes sandpapering
a small carving; then back over
the dome of each cheek bone; working inwards
to Chaplin’s square; my uncut skin
paradoxically virginal, breathing when slapped
lovingly, as by the bishop at Confirmation.

Since then I have had my ankle strapped
for rugby, shaved and dressed by the nurse,
and have felt my chest stripped of hair and ready to burst
later in an ambulance; and I remember a lady
towel-turbaned, one foot up
on the tub, carving from the silence a smooth limb—
steam blown about on a breeze like a Chinese kitchen—
who emerged later, in the luxury of smooth skin,
through scented dark, amid the jangle of coat-hangers
that were hung and sung like the triangles once played upon
at school; ready for dancing (I with a fresh shirt drawn
around my shoulders, buttoned to the top); who eased the knot
of my tie into its slot,
and knotted her hand in mine, evening to evening.

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