Joel Lane
Back Room
To get started here, you have to be
too drunk to finish.
The air’s thin with amyl nitrite,
and the shapes of hunger
are more visible, at first,
than the forest of silent men.
This where our dreams go
to hide, and dream of hiding.
The music drowns every voice.
The options of hunger are few:
kneel, close your dulled eyes,
touch the lines of a face,
feel a hand in your hair,
lick salt from the mountain.
And afterwards, there’s nothing
to do but walk on.
The stories are over,
but they cannot end:
I’ll meet you by the river
where the gods are rotting.
Page(s) 35
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