[RCL]

A Perfectionist’s Hair

When thirteen, he still displayed
his “trailing clouds of glory”
and obsessively replayed
William Wordsworth’s theory.*

Blessed, he bore long curly hair,
envied far and wide,
and groomed it with cosmetic care,
black locks his greatest pride.

Hair had merged his arching brows,
but it was daily plucked
and thinned until it was two rows—
the unibrow was shucked.

Cheeks and chin were bare of beard,
the smoothest in his class,
but he was just a classic nerd,
a hapless horse’s ass.

*In “Ode: Intimations of Immortality...”