NOTES

Diary entry from the Village Barber

translated by Tracy Hamon

She arrives one morning shortly after I open the glass door, breathes her large breasts through the doorway, and drops her ample bottom down. I stand, shocked by her sudden presence, the way she spills into the room with her bleating English words, the way they clank and clutter the space between us. She holds my striped barber’s cape to her neck like a small child with a bib. I walk near. Her short fingers fumble with waves of muted grey and white, water caps in a storm, the tide heaving over her forehead. She motions fingers. Cut. Cut. Measures three centimetres. Runs her palm up the nape of her neck. Close as a lover. Those alien sounds mixing with the chime of the clock, striking nine times. I tighten the cape around her neck, push the lever to lower the chair into position, and begin at the nape. Press blade over comb, snip into the smooth line of hair. Lift, comb in, then out, snip. My knuckles graze the soft lobe of her left ear, the quick heat of thin skin against skin. I want to linger on that lobe, roll it between finger and thumb, touch my lips to that questioning curve. She bends her head forward, leans her chin into the browned flesh, frowns meditation in a furrow, closes eyes to light’s prying nose, that warm press highlighting her ringless hand on the armrest, blocking the view of women moving heavy past the window, baskets of bread and fresh milk bumping.

~ by suemintude on August 26, 2008.