Last Window in the Punk Hotel
Rob Cook

SLOW DEATH BY GUNSHOT

We walked the wrong way home
from Spring Street Natural.

The direction to the wrong world.

It was cold, late.

We didn’t notice
the green hat shivering by itself
on the sidewalk

or the woman behind a broken window
feeding her mouth
to a child.

A New York Knicks thug
demanded our money
from the maw in his hooded sweatshirt.

The traffic signal screamed once
and went blank.

It was still late in the wrong world.

You walked faster than I.

The streets kept getting smaller.
No people. Just the outlines of people,
whispering in the slang of terrified rats.

There was a man held together with Christmas lights,

and the sound a car makes
when it’s angry.

The dogs dangling from the trees
didn’t cry, though
they seemed part of our wounds.

We didn’t turn around.

We didn’t hear the blood
we’d lost pulling itself
along the ground behind us.