Spring and All, XIV

Of death
the barber
the barber
talked to me

cutting my
life with
sleep to trim
my hair—

It's just
a moment
he said, we die
every night—

And of 
the newest
ways to grow
hair on

bald death—
I told him
of the quartz
lamp

and of old men
with third
sets of teeth
to the cue

of an old man
who said
at the door—
Sunshine today!

for which 
death shaves
him twice
a week

From Spring and All, reissued by New Directions. Copyright © 1962, 2011 by William Carlos Williams. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.