My Roots Are Showing
"My roots are showing,"
I tell the receptionist at the beauty shop
And she tells me it will be about fifteen minutes
But she doesn't count on the teenage boy
Ahead of me with his shaved sides
And long mane down the middle
Of his head and fraction-of-an-inch
Consultations with his mother.
Thirty minutes later the dissatisfied
Boy begrudgingly gives up the chair.
It's my turn. For the first time I see
The beautician close up. She has a pierced
Eyebrow. I cringe, feeling the pain she
Obviously doesn't, and tell her
My roots are showing.
She brushes in the color, then leaves,
Returns with a middle-aged man,
And I'm sitting there with my hair
Standing on end and color smudges
On my forehead, looking like the hostess
Of a late night horror movie
But it's what I have to do
When my roots are showing.
He takes the chair next to mine
Male pattern baldness has left him
With a few strands on top and a ring around the edges.
Half an hour later, it's time to pull through my color
And the beautician is still snipping this guy's hair
One wisp at a time, and I long for the days when
A man wouldn't be caught dead in a beauty shop.
But my roots are showing.
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