I wrote a poem while waiting for a haircut

The barber sells confidence

A gift for eyes that only want something pleasant to land on

Conjured by a man who rents an adjustable chair

In this small room

Hair falls onto shoulders like annual trimming of mulberry trees

Blades are sharpened

Heads spin slow in vinyl chairs

Men cloaked in black, circling like children on a carousel that never quite stops

Talk of golf, of retiring early, of nothing at all

The shed hair brushed away

Men coming, men going

Walking out new, or close enough to it

Music low beneath the buzz of clippers

Necklines squared, mustaches tamed

On the wall, ghosts of barbers from 1950, buttoned shirts, chinos pressed sharp as their old scissors

A blade moves in one clean direction

Downward, certain, unhurried

Beside me, a pile of hair goes quiet on the white tile

And next to it, waiting, a broom the color of dried blood