Photo by Jan Tinneberg. Creative Commons.
In early spring, when the air warms
and turns bright with new petals,
pink and gold, pollen-furred,
you, city boy, raised among
skyscrapers and suburbs, take razor
to your entire massive head.
Cut away the grizzled, whorled
whiskers, maskers of hard smiles.
Cut away the thicket of dark hair
beneath which your crown has kept
its cold secrets since All Hallows.
The sky-dome of your cranium
glistens like new velvet.
The bare fortress of your jaw reverberates
with the muffled cannon-fire
of your throat's each word.
The moonlight sculpts your full face now,
its prominences and valleys.
You emerge, as a bear from its snug
winter cave, hungry and ready to hunt.