I’ve dad’s key to the barbershop.
I keep it on my key ring
for its wistful returns.
It opens the barbershop door.
There’s dad, arms frozen in air,
asking me to sweep ancient hair.
I don’t mind but for cinema lines,
in which case I’m still embarrassed—
People looking in, as through time,
at the immigrant kid
swept up in a barber’s dream,
without purpose or ambition.
I return to the watchmaker
whom I’ve killed before,
dead battery and time capsule,
fixed on this escarpment,
a zombie in love with a dream,
nostalgic for a golden age,
arms heavy with toxic snails,
hands moist with murderous gel
and my nuclear arsenal
and hairspring trigger
for his eternal recurrence.
I return to the watchmaker
whom I’ve killed before,
being of his chronology,
mirroring my own assassin,
deep time running under strata
like gear trains through mind.
Salvatore Ala 