Narrow Rooms
It started in a room made narrow by
Paul’s Belle-mère. Lice-filled Arthur bailed from this
Before the bourgeois ones could make him fly
At their command. He fled to the abyss,
The alleyed chasm of streetlife. When Paul
Found Rimbaud after weeks of searching, he
Had lost his baby fat—and had grown tall
And gawky. Sex, that serendipity,
Trapped Paul. It dragged him to a prison cell
Once they had quarreled in their narrow room
At 8 Great College Street. From there they fell
To gunshots in Paul’s hysterical gloom
In small bore Brussels. Rimbaud postponed blame:
The narrow life of guns sales bought his shame.