Hairdressers demand their very own
literary approach
Felicitas Hoppe

Les coiffeurs demandent
une approche littéraire particulière
Emmanuelle Pagano

I'm always dreaming of blue
climbing shoes and a backyard
full of hairdressers. The hairdressers,
lots of them, smoke, and they talk
about hair. Thanks to the blue shoes
I climb down into the yard
I sit with the hairdressers
and smoke with them. Smoke
in silence, because I have nothing
to say about hair.
Rapunzel, they call and don't
mean me. And because Rapunzel
is someone else and doesn't
live here, I don't know
how I'll get back up.
The hairdressers ask, What does
chatching mean? I answer:
tchatcher, you coiffeurs!
Don't you know? Every morning
it wakes me up and now I find
it's about hair, what on earth
did I expect? They puff
on their fags, I shuffle
my chair, ask myself
and the hairdressers what Sigmund
would say about my
climbing shoes - why
are they blue, and what
is the meaning of hairdressers.
But the hairdressers don't
listen, the hairdressers
go back to work.
As for me, I sit in the yard
like a wet dog

Translated by Anna Crowe