THE STALE AND PROSPEROUS AIR



haircut. and the
haircuts are done
at a franchise of
a discount chain.


you sit in the chair,

the stylist approaches
you, she has a star of David
hanging around her neck
just south of the middle-aged
lips and chin so very,
very thick like
the meaning of a Russian
novel. she asks you in
broken English how you
want your hair cut and it's
always the same except
your hair is disappearing
and your forehead and
scalp are growing and
you tell her do what
she thinks is best as if
you expect her to make
something out of nothing.

she sighs

and let's out a breath
that hits you in the face
and there are traces
of garlic and coffee dancing
on that breath just
as the suburban summer
air is heavy with humidity
and the stench of fast
food and exhaust.

your hair is cut

while you look
out the window and
into the air of
the most powerful
country on earth,

the shopping center
across the street is
half-empty and
there are
weeds growing
in the parking
lot cracks while
the traffic and
the homeless
still continue
to move and
the homeless
seem to flourish
lately, grease
stained women
and men shuffling
down the sidewalks
carrying their world
in plastic bags surviving

while making a life
of barely something
out of
absolutely nothing.



BIO: David LaBounty's poetry and fiction has appeared in Night Train, the New Plains Review, Pank, Word Riot, Unlikely 2.0 and other journals. His third novel, Affluenza, is due out in 2009. Affluenza is a novel about pornography, debt, consumerism, vanity, greed and pyromania told through the financial rise and fall of an insurance executive who lives beyond his means. David LaBounty lives in Michigan.