In her affectionate verse "The Shampoo," Elizabeth Bishop addresses her lesbian partner Lota, whose tall black tresses have begun to bear the signs of gray aging. Her tone is tender and her language contemplative: she marvels at the marks of age with a sigh, not a scowl. Bishop infuses the poem with images of lichens and astros, first to observe the marks of aging, then to expose an emotional undercurrent that is deeper than its fleeting physical counterpart. “The Shampoo” serves as a vehicle for a subtle and sentimental declaration of love, which Bishop affirms even in the face of the slight manifestations of age. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In the first stanza, Bishop compares his partner's gray hair to marine lichens, insinuating that they work their way through the threads of his hair and spread out. in “gray and concentric shocks”. (The strands of gray that reveal themselves are "shocks", both in the sense that they are clumps of color and literally shocking to Bishop; they have always existed but have until now gone unnoticed, and their presence and their implications are shocking.) In the first line of the poem, gray hair is oxymoronically referred to as "always explosions." Perhaps this means that they grow quietly, imperceptibly – almost as flowers do – until their growth is perceived, at which point the observer's reaction is an explosion of emotion. Bishop further supports the notion of a silent maturation in line 5 when she mentions the moon, which she uses as a metaphor for Lota's face. The “rings around the moon” are actually the lines and wrinkles that have started to appear on Lota's aging face. As with the spread of lichens, changes in the waxing and waning of the moon can never be observed in their movement, but can only be detected once the full change is complete. Despite the physical transformations that have occurred and are still occurring, Bishop notes that in her memories, she and her lover are still fresh and still full of the vibrancy of youth. Although the rhyme scheme (abacbc) remains in effect throughout the poem's three stanzas, Bishop uses his poetic license to refine it in the second stanza. This is appropriate given the slight change in tone in her tone, which becomes a lament for her "dear friend" who has shown herself to be aging before her time. Bishop is aware of her own unrealistic wish to preserve a kind of indestructibility – an immortality – which Lota's wrinkles and gray hair clearly supplant. Even so, she fantasizes that “the heavens will take care of us as long” (lines 7 and 8) as they would take care of the moon, which is apparently infinite. Just as Lota was "rushed" and seemed to have aged suddenly, even earlier than Bishop felt she should have been, abstract "Time" was "accommodating", in keeping with the practical reality of the maturation of Lota. solemn when Bishop describes the gray hairs against the black background of Lota's head as "shooting stars". Shooting stars indeed light up the sky; but shooting stars are also shooting stars. Eventually, these stars will burn out, just as life finally fails. The "shooting stars" are in "luminous formation", which gives them a direction, a purpose, as if they were soldiers marching towards the final clash between life and death. Lota’s replies “flow where, / so straight, so soon? (Lines 15-16), Bishop asks, demonstrating a ;.