Outside an old bearded house,
a man trims another’s man hair.
They’ve been sitting like this forever,
dead cigarettes between their teeth.

They mull over shared griefs and women –
women who somehow belong to no one.
Time falls from them in soft gray tufts,
sliding off sagging shoulders.

A scrape, a pause – the blade set right again,
then quiet settles into the soap-thick air.
Under the lather, two foreheads gleam,
believing once more in their youth.

The rinse water runs bitter and sharp,
and darkens the dust at their feet.
So bitterness finds its way in
through a crack in a hardened heart.