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What Are Eyebrows For?

Either shaved or engraved
with mascara
no physician knows
if eyebrows can be weaponized
for their mild physicality
sitting far up the forehead
in a hopeless effort
to protect your eyes
from dust and sun
or saving the face
taking a punch.

In a gig environment
without mirror at hand
or Groucho
even psychologists don’t know
what the black bars mean
if we raise just one of two little flags
to mark suspicion.

—
Michael Salcman is the former chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Harvard Review, Hudson Review, and numerous other journals. His books include Poetry in Medicine, an anthology of medical poems; A Prague Spring (winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize); Shades & Graces (Danial Hoffman Book Prize winner); Necessary Speech: New & Selected Poems; and, most recently, Crossing the Tape.

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