The Long and Short of It: A Pandemic Poem

The Long and Short of It

I used to get my hair cut twice a year—
grow it long, cut it short, grow it long, cut it short.
Each trip to the salon
wrapped neatly inside an hour,
the look I left with as final as
the severing of that first big chop.
Home haircuts are slower things—
tentative and tender,
gradually snipping a little
and a little more.
I’ve already had three
in as many months.
Or maybe it’s just one long cut
that keeps going.
Between haircuts, I tilt my head at the mirror
and stare,
using scissors to coax locks into place,
nudging strands this way and that,
waiting for the right shape
to reveal itself.
Sometimes I feel that’s all I do anymore—
tilt my head and stare and wait,
whittling away at time
while time keeps growing longer,
expecting the world—eventually—to form a shape
I recognize again.

© Carie Juettner, July 2020