The Shampoo ( From The Nightingales)

How long it must have been, the girl’s hair, cascading down her shoulders almost to her waist, light brown and heavy as brocade: the story I’m remembering of N’s, remembering as my own hair’s washed and cut, the salt-and-pepper cuneiform to frill my barber’s smock. Arts and Science is expanding. The wall to the empty shop next door pulled down and a dozen workmen slink improbably on scaffolds butting the dusty ceiling, cacophony and plastic tarps, the whirr of drills that mingles with the dryers’ jittery hums, the scissors’ flash, veronicas of clicks, the coloring, the curling, the antique cash register, melodious with its chime. And best, the liquid gurgle of hands massaging scalps the row of sinks, twelve hands and six wet scalps in a line. I’m next, and leaning back (let me wash it in this big tin basin, battered and shiny like the moon)