by David LaBounty
They were all complaining
as they sat waiting for
chairs, they were all complaining
as they sat waiting to
get their hair and eyebrows
and ear hair trimmed and cut by
electric clippers all for
less than 15 bucks. They were
waiting
and I was waiting and all
the conversations were
basically the same and
they are always basically
the same middle-aged
complaints about the
cost of things and the
quality of things and
of how so many things
are made in China.
And I always feel too young
and thin to be in that
barbershop but the mirrors
say otherwise and I had to
agree; too many things are
made in China and there
was some more complaining
about cheap labor and how
things need to be made here
how things need to be fixed here
because too many don’t have
good jobs anymore. Half the
men in the shop don’t have
good jobs anymore and the
only thing to save this country
would be for people to start
making things here. And I agreed,
except,
I don’t know how
to make
anything.
David LaBounty's poetry appears in Four Volts, Boston Literary Magazine, The Verse Marauder and in upcoming issues of Autumn Sky Poetry and Pemmican. He served in the navy for four years and has worked as a miner, a mechanic, a reporter and a salesman.