for Tony

The setting is a room in the cancer ward.
My cousin who is a barber
has crossed the border every day
to shave my father in the bed.
The room is sickly white.
A razor’s edge of light cuts across them.

My cousin shaves my father
like he’s creating a new face
under the mask of the cancer,
and something about the shave
makes my father forget and smile.

Anyone who has seen a barber
shaving a sick barber
has seen a wave of foam
wash over the mirror of life
and change all faces into one.