Narrow Rooms
It started in a room made narrow by
Paul’s Belle-mère. Lice-doomed 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, the serendipity,
Trapped Paul. It dragged him to a prison cell
Once they had quarrelled at their narrow room
In 8 Great College Street. From there they fell
To gunshots in Paul’s panic loaded gloom
In small bore Brussels. Rimbaud postponed blame.
The narrow life of gun sales brought Paul’s shame.