Issue 2, February 2007

Rats in from the docks rush up
through the pipes of his toilet.
Their fat bodies beat on the drums of the bowl.

Roaches large as praying mantis float in an overflow from the toilet in the cell above.

A new man moans, saying he dreamed of a woman in yellow satin.

And steak, rare and red, on a white enamel plate under a kitchen light.

Two guards restrain a recalcitrant, the hoofs of their heels again and again at his head, then the rancor of keys, the decisive slam of a gate.

Amos has hanged himself with a dirty sheet.

The poet escapes with a dead man from the forties who lit gas lamps at dusk on Aisquith Street, showing him the magic of fire when he was six. He was going to be a lamplighter when he grew up.