I knew it was going
in my mid-twenties
and started to back against walls
so nobody would see me
from behind
to see my bald spot.
There was little to see
at first
but wanted no one to know.

My father had a huge absence of follicles
and his brother’s head was similar.
I knew what was coming for me
so on some July Fourth
I got ahead of it
and cut it all off.

I stayed isolated for the weekend
so no one would know
the troubles I was seeing.
I hoped that by the weekend’s end
everything would have grown back
bushier than ever.
Somehow
that plan failed to develop as expected.

My head remains shorn.
When I let it grow out,
less and less of it appears
so the cutting was a fine idea
back when I started
decades past.

My hair feels nothing
when blades separate it from me.
I feel liberated, clean.

The hair death
is always an opportunity
for me to be renewed.