When the barber asks you how you like it tell him you want it gunless clean like the seas receding and the moon still a god and the wolves back to prowling the edges of our fires, then smile when he says, So the usual?

While he minds your ears tell him about the diner with the special—two eggs and grace plus toast—where the whole place goes quiet when the ambulance rolls by.

If he asks about the straight razor, consider suggesting that maybe we’ve had just about enough of all that.

At the close 
when the barber spins you round 
to face yourself 

and asks again 
how you like it 

that’s your cue to start lying.  

—Long-Listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #2

Garrett Stack’s

first book is Yeoman’s Work (Bottom Dog Press, 2020). His poems were most recently published in Blue Earth Review, The Pinch, and Dunes Review. He lives, works, and will die Middle Western.

Links to his poetry and fiction at: https://garrettstack.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ A Friend From School, flash fiction in Issue 8 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (June 2021)