age and balance catching up.
I tease that maybe he should grow
a beard. He’d never had one, he says.

In the past months, my father’s need grows.
I surprise myself when I ask,
Do you want me to shave you?
He doesn’t say no.

I have never shaved a man.

He’d had my brother buy
him an electric razor—now necessary
after having shaved his face and jowl
more than 29,000 times
in the 80 years since facial hair
and the Army said he was a man.

I shave him.
He moves his chin
like I’ve seen him do
in the mirror from childhood.
I stretch the skin to smooth it.
It feels awkward. Clumsy.
He doesn’t complain.

Why have I always preferred
the stroke and cushion and dash
of bearded men.

When a line of fine grayed
whiskers drop from the blade
onto his shirt collar, I brush it off.

He is more than the husk of his body. Still.

‍
Gail Goepfert, an associate editor at RHINO Poetry, authored four books, the most recent, Self-Portrait with Thorns from Glass Lyre Press in 2022.  She has a chapbook, Hard Business of Living, and two photoverse books, Honey from the Sun, 2020, and Earth Cafeteria, 2023 in collaboration with Patrice Boyer Claeys.