Poem by Committee Member and Former Belfast Poet Laureate Elizabeth Garber

The Man Who Looks Like Elvis

No one remembers when the man with the pomade-combed

crescendo of jet black hair first appeared, but we all quietly

pay attention to him. Two summers ago a guitar was strapped

over his back when we eyed him wandering miles along Route 1.

Last year, when his hair was bleached reddish blond, we privately

wondered if he’d given up on Elvis. This spring, his hair was black

again. All over town, we nodded the same quiet nod: Elvis is back.

Passing him on High Street we notice his carefully-shaved long

sideburns, before our gaze skirts off to study the bike shop window.

He’s leaving the supermarket as we arrive. A strange discomfort

twists our faces away. Opening night of Hairspray, in the art deco

neon glow of the movie theater, the crowd is thick with bleached

blond beehives, sculpted hair rising like curvaceous mounds of soft

ice cream. Elvis appears with his blunt heavy brows, the rough

carved mouth, the deep plowed wrinkles under his eternal pompadour.

In the contest for the biggest, tallest hair, we cheer on contestants

in rhinestone glasses, peddle pushers, bobby socks. Later, when we chat

and smile, trying to hide the searching hunger of our loneliness, he slips

through the forest of lacquered ratted hair, a silent king passing us, searching

for his subjects, his promised land, a place where he, too, will be recognized.