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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Death The Barber

William Carlos Williams

Of death
the barber
the barber
talked to me

cutting my
life with
sleep to trim
my hair—

It’s just
a moment
he said, we die
every night—

And of
the newest
ways to grow
hair on

bald death—
I told him
of the quartz
lamp

and of old men
with third
sets of teeth
to the cue

of an old man
who said
at the door—
Sunshine today!

for which
death shaves
him twice
a week
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Spring and All | Contact, 1923
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