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Lawrence Kessenich won the 2010 Strokestown International Poetry Prize. His poetry has been published in Sewanee Review, Atlanta Review, Poetry Ireland Review and many other magazines. He has two poetry chapbooks, Pearland Strange News, and two full-length poetry books, Before Whose Glory and Age of Wonders. Three of his poems were nominated for Pushcart Prizes and three read on Writer’s Almanac. Kessenich has also published essays, including one read on NPR’s This I Believe, and had short plays produced at festivals in Boston, New York and Durango, Colorado. His first novel, Cinnamon Girl, was published in September 2016. His latest book of poetry is titled Pearl.

Lawrence Kessenich

Love: A Shearing

The beard was part of me—of us

as it turned out—but my decision

to remove it was unilateral.

Perhaps, as she would later

accuse me, it was an act of

violence, a way to alienate,

but it seemed to me our alienation

was a fait accompli. Perhaps it was

a declaration of independence,

for as I looked into that mirror

I was moved to liberate the face

beneath my ten-year-old beard, a face

she’d never seen. I found a scissors

in my friend’s medicine cabinet,

slashed away, finishing the job

clumsily from inexperience

with his shaving cream and razor.

Cheeks smooth and red as a baby’s,

I emerged. She looked as if

I’d slapped her face, instead of

shaving my own, as if I were a

stranger who had stolen

into her life and made

himself at home. Which, I suppose,

is exactly who I was.

— Lawrence Kessenich

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