Best Poem

In Almost One Breath

he told me
that tea bags

chamomile wet and cold

would take care of
the puffiness around
my eyes, and tires
he said,
you can’t have
a lot of stress
selling tires.

well, I said, you
still have to
deal with
people, and
we get
all kinds…

well ain’t that
the truth, he said,
there are a lot of nuts
out there, and
he told me
about his dying
health food store,
how the economy
and shoplifters
were bringing
him under and
how the average
health food store
shoplifter was
a woman in
her forties
suburban and maternal.

he stopped talking
after that and
I watched him
drink coffee
from a styrofoam
cup. he held
the cup with his
left hand and
he had to use
the right hand

to keep his left hand still.

David LaBounty’s poems have appeared in a number of print and online journals and he has two novels under his belt, The Trinity and The Perfect Revolution.