Hair by Margaret.

 

Climb the staircase of the outside fire escape

The only way to reach Margaret’s salon she ran out of her top floor flat kitchen

Widows entertained with tea and gossip as cats clambered over their chairs

taking residence on their laps

Enjoying the company whilst having their fortnightly blue rinse

 

Mum went to Margaret

Her mum went to Margaret

Her mum went to Margaret

 

Hair as tradition

Hair as family

Hair as company

Hair as uncanny

Hair as scary

 

School holidays, I went with Mum to Margaret’s

Hundreds of Victorian dolls staring at me

as I waited alone in Margaret’s living room

 

Hair by Giorgio.

 

‘Your usual?, asks Giorgio ‘Two back and sides and three on top?’

‘One all over’, I reply

‘If you’re sure. Can’t stick it back on after’

‘I’m sure’ as he cautiously makes the first shave

When it’s not Giorgio, Magda cuts my hair

Devoid of desire

Long thirty minutes of small talk when you prefer the hands of men through your hair

 

Hair by Malcolm.

 

Down the narrow steps to Shaws

The first barbers I went to with Dad as a child

I was his little proper shave because he couldn’t pronounce  protégé

 

The smoke-filled barbers in the basement

Malcolm smoked disque blurs as he cut

Sat in chair then covered with black gown

Aged 16, the realisation I enjoyed it as much as he did

Getting closer with every cut

He knew what was going on under my gown

Pain of razor blade on back of neck

made better with gentle application of talc and tissue

 

Hair as desire

Hair as pleasure

Hair as erotica

Hair as seduction

 

I was his Antoine Doinel

Yet seduced in another way

More than just having my hair cut

Malcolm knew giving me my first number one all over was my ticket

to be with other number ones in gay Soho

He knew all too well what was going on under the gown

 

Hair as community

Hair as statement

Hair as expression

Hair as identity

Hair as strength

Hair as acceptance

Hair as power

 

Hair by Darren.

 

Mr Toppers, opposite Astoria

Cheap cuts, no frills

No conditioner in that rinse

Much longer hair in those days

to feel Darren’s slow caress of gel through my hair

No pleasure on his part. No return of serve

Though wouldn’t wash Darren out my hair for days

 

Hipster haircuts and male grooming nowadays at Shaws

Imagine ‘Malcolm, moisturise my eyebrows’

just to see the looks on the faces of  boy racers having zero crops trying to look ‘hard’ back then

 

Hair as masculine

Hair as division

Hair as memory

Hair as remembering

Hair as forgetting

Hair as then

Hair as now