Ekaterina ZALKIND

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Haircut


When the barber's son
got hit by a car,
the barbershop was perfectly
abandoned and Hans,
the old German,
who had walked eight blocks
with his cane
to get his bristles trimmed,
stood leaning against the glass
of the diorama,
wondering where he had seen
a blue like the blue
of the vinyl chairs,
which suggested imaginary
skies, especially next to
the Caribbean gleam
of the Barbasol, but
what he really didn't
understand was the casual
mystery of the fly swatter
on the counter.




My husband's eyebrows


The violence of light
ending in a field.
The slow bleeding
of the rose-golds.
The blue smell
of darkness
the wind carries.
The rending of the sky
by the movement
of crows.




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