The Shampoo

In Stanza 1, the lichens have "arranged / to meet the rings around the moon" (Lines 4-5), and the moon might symbolize the friend's hair or perhaps the activity of washing the friend's hair. A moon can have a circular, oval shape, and so can a person's head on which their hair grows. Maybe the moon represents a specific part of the friend’s head since the lichens form "gray, concentric shocks" (Line 3), and there were gray streaks in the hair of Lota—the "dear friend" (Line 9) and inspiration behind the poem. In this reading, the gray streaks/shocks meet somewhere around the moon part of the friend's head.

The speaker compares the "big tin basin" (Line 17) in which the hair washing takes place to a "battered and shiny" (Line 18) moon, which bolsters the idea that the moon symbolizes the friend's hair and the process of shampooing it. The speaker presents the speaker's hair and the objects used to wash the hair in the context of the moon, so the entire procedure takes on the magisterial allure of a glowing moon. With the moon symbolism, Bishop reinforces the natural qualities of the shampoo and the transcendental elements in the world of the speaker and their friend.