Whisker

Suddenly, this barb growing out of my chin,

as sharp as the quill on a porcupine:

the fault of a middle-aged shift in hormones,

that dot of the Other in the yin-yang sign.

It's springing up fast as a giant's beanstalk,

so rapidly I worry that my face,

cut open, might yield one mile-long hair

curled up like a spool of measuring tape.

Suppose I stopped cutting it back each morning,

relinquished my scissors, Sisyphe on strike:

would it twirl from my jaw like a catfish's whisker,

a kingbird's vibrissa, a bighorn sheep's spike,

a frayed piece of line from a fight-weary fish?

If I can't be a Bishop, could I be a witch?