issue 35 > poetry > gibson

The ones I slept with—I was always sleeping with someone.
The time you did—and said it was just a kiss in the hallway.

Criminal mug shot: Kissinger under klieg lights cracking jokes
(the Christmas bombing): he’s a rock star in a Paris hallway.

On CBS, teenagers in Phnom Penh wave handguns in the city.
Now it’s a museum of victim faces, like tourists, in hallways.

Flyer advertises a room in Madame Detloff’s dive (no bathroom).
So young, we don’t even mind that her cats hiss us in the hallway.

These aren’t the Polaroids fading in the shoebox in the closet.
These burn, like the vinegar used on the cat piss in that hallway.






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