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.