2007-04-10
My mustache
When I first put it on I felt fraudulent
I desired to kiss women, to see if they would know
the truth beneath the whiskers.
I often stumbled over it, placing it at the last moment,
before my manager witnessed me out of form.
I wanted to be the associate seen in the supermarket
without dungarees, dressed just as professionally
as workdays, and so between bites of my sandwich,
I set it back on my face, poised between the cleft of the upper lip
and the smock of my nostrils.
There were times when I was without it,
on the telephone I was certain the depth of my voice suffered
when I rushed to pick up the receiver without the whisk
and so I would feign a cough, retrieve the ticklish wisp,
and return transformed to expertise.
It was not long before I could not stand to be without it
I wore it in the car, on the train, on my way to the hairdresser.
At home, I stood before the mirror admiring the way it elucidated my features,
With it, my eyes became sinister and wise, my eyebrows no longer farcically slender.
It was only in the shower, clinging to the drain-catcher like a wet hairball,
that I wanted to be rid of it.