‘When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
– Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking Glass”
The last ritual,
the barber shows me
my trim in his hand mirror.
My hair is completely white.
I’m certain it still had some
brown in it when
I sat in the chair.
And the lines from the tips
of my smile to my chin belong
to the last customer who sat here.
I can’t be a septuagenarian this year
if I can’t pronounce the word.
If I can’t pronounce the word,
what it describes does not exist.
published in Sonnets to Sing
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