the rain falls and runs
over the black shield, not bullet proof,
       like a life, that is not mullet proof,
bad taste in personal care, bad taste in your mouth

so be aware, rain drops don't have legs but they
run anyway, across the umbrella,
and drip to the ground,
your heels kick up the spray of discarded raindrop corpses,

they bleed into your pants and the stain grows,
the further you try to walk away,
from the moving scene, of a crime,
but the clothes like all things, even drips dry overnight,

until it falls and runs again,
on a day, when the umbrella gets forgotten,
where the mullet meets its taker,
and the barber's chair and floor,

take on a texture change, as dead
pieces of hair fall and rearrange,
each time the door opens to the shop,
the unwelcome chill breeze sweeps in,

as the chair forms to the body of the voluntold,
striking the strop, blade raised, the barber stands behind,
a man who is getting old as his hair,
the living and the dead each strand

but the chemo is coming,
and it will take it, a requirement, a demand
anyway, may as well give it away,
cancer the disease takes, without saying please

here where the pole twirls and never stops,
the chatter of voices and murmurs in the shop,
good riddance to bad *******, he thinks
as the barber powders his neck and brushes,

any hairy evidence to the ground, they tumble and fall,
until night falls and runs, over the cityscape,
the pinpricks of light along the streets,
as he walks home alone, the umbrella he left

behind, closed up like the shop, the twirling candy cane pole stopped,
is far from his mind, for the rain falling will hide the tears,
he is not ready, he is unsteady, how will he hide the fears?
Soaking, in the night, pale against the dark future as it appears, like his hair...short