Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary

By Kevin Young b. 1970 Kevin Young

Closed Mondays

is music is men

off early from work is waiting

for the chance at the chair

while the eagle claws holes

in your pockets keeping

time by the turning

of rusty fans steel flowers with

cold breezes is having nothing

better to do than guess at the years

of hair matted beneath the soiled caps

of drunks the pain of running

a fisted comb through stubborn

knots is the dark dirty low

down blues the tender heads

of sons fresh from cornrows all

wonder at losing half their height

is a mother gathering hair for good

luck for a soft wig is the round

difficulty of ears the peach

faced boys asking Eddie

to cut in parts and arrows

wanting to have their names read

for just a few days and among thin

jazz is the quick brush of a done

head the black flood around

your feet grandfathers

stopping their games of ivory

dominoes just before they reach the bone

yard is winking widowers announcing

cut it clean off I’m through courting

and hair only gets in the way is the final

spin of the chair a reflection of

a reflection that sting of wintergreen

tonic on the neck of a sleeping snow

haired man when you realize it is

your turn you are next

Source: Most Way Home (Zoland Books, 1995)

Biography

Three of Kevin Young’s books form what he calls “an American trilogy”: To Repel Ghosts (2001), which explores the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat; Jelly Roll (2003), a collection of blues poems; and Black Maria (2005), a film noir. His first book of poetry, Most Way Home (1995), was selected for the National Poetry Series by Lucille Clifton, who describes the collection as re-creating “an inner history which is compelling and . . .

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