> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Shaving her hair
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/article-911jsp/
- Published: 2003-01-22T00:01:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-17T11:13:39.000Z
- Author: Sally Roe
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:08, #ImagesUploaded

shaving her hair  
(for my sister)

she is shaving her head, guiding over bone electric clippers  
which are like holding a hornet’s buzz in her hand.

her already-short hair is hanging in the air like down,  
like the smallest pin-feathers found under black wings,

and when she has finished the garden spills over with silence  
she shakes the tremors from her hand and ears like water.

her strangely revealed beauty, her exquisite skull  
show no trace of the penitent, but a delight in air’s cool glide;

she pauses to run a splayed palm over what is left  
loosening the prickling stick of stubble clipped from skin,

as from the head of statue smoothed by years of prayerful touch  
a soft-shorn spiralling from her long-healed fontanelle.

then with a broom she sweeps the black down of her hair  
into the black soil of the flowerbed, and I hold my breath

for she looks for a moment like a buddhist child-monk  
sweeping the possibility of insects from her path.

![clayheadRoe565.jpg](https://www.opendemocracy.net/content/files/2026/04/clayheadRoe565_opeU1bX-1776424235168.jpg)

clayheadRoe565.jpg

Sculpture by Bruno Lucchesi