In her affectionate verse “The Shampoo,” Elizabeth Bishop addresses her fellow lesbian Lota, whose big black tresses have begun to bear the signs of gray aging. His tone is tender and his language contemplative: he marvels at the signs of age with a sigh, not a frown. Bishop infuses the poem with images of lichens and asters, first to observe the signs of aging, then to expose an emotional undercurrent that runs deeper than its transitory physical counterpart. “The Shampoo” serves as a vehicle for a subtle and sentimental declaration of love, which Bishop affirms even against the faint manifestations of age. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In the first verse, Bishop compares his partner's gray hair to sea lichens, creeping through the strands of his hair and spreading in "concentric gray shocks." (The strands of gray that reveal themselves are “shocking” both in the sense of being wisps of color and literally shocking to Bishop; they have always existed but have until now gone unnoticed, and their presence and implications are disconcerting.) In the line of opening of the poem, gray hair is oxymoronicly defined as "still explosions". This perhaps means that they grow silently, imperceptibly – almost like flowers do – until their growth is perceived, at which point the observer's reaction is an explosion of emotion. Bishop further supports the idea of ​​silent maturation in line 5 when he mentions the moon, which he uses as a metaphor for Lota's face. The “rings around the moon” are in fact the lines and wrinkles that have begun to appear on Lota's aged face. As with the spreading of lichens, changes in the waxing and waning of the moon can never be fully observed in their movement, but can only be detected when the full change is complete. Despite the physical transformations that have occurred and are still occurring, Bishop notes that in memories she and her lover are always fresh and still full of the vitality of youth. Although the rhyme scheme (abacbc) remains in place throughout the poem's three stanzas, Bishop uses his poetic license to change it in the second stanza. This is appropriate given the slight change in her tone, which becomes a lament for her “dear friend” who is shown to be aging before her time. Bishop is aware of his own unrealistic desire to preserve a kind of indestructibility—an immortality—that Lota's wrinkles and gray hair clearly supersede. Even still, he fantasizes that "the heavens will be present / All the time with us" (lines 7-8) as they would the moon, which is apparently an infinity. As Lota was “rushed” and appears to have aged suddenly, even sooner than Bishop thought she should, so the abstract “Time” was “suited” – following in tandem the practical reality of Lota's maturation. There is a hint of the solemn when Bishop refers to the gray hair on the black background of Lota's head as "shooting stars." In fact, shooting stars illuminate the sky; but shooting stars are also shooting stars. Eventually, these stars will fade, just as life finally fails. The “shooting stars” are in “luminous formation,” which gives them a sense of direction, of purpose, as if they were soldiers marching towards the final battle between life and death. Lota's lines "are pouring where, / so straight, so soon?" (Lines 15-16), Bishop asks, displaying a childlike curiosity that is merely rhetorical. Bishop herself knows the final destination of gray hair and aging and recognizes what they are;.