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      March 19, 2015Edifying Just to SeeHannah Gamble

      When his dick finally
      felt right again,
      and he could pee
      without it burning,
      he went right back out
      into the special places
      where the women lived
      and were waiting.
      Some pulled their dresses
      down, like they were ready
      to have his dick
      go between their tits
      like right
      now, and some of them
      seemed to want a beer first.
      The magic of women
      just trying to get
      something right.
      They’ve usually been taught
      that getting a man to come
      is the easiest thing—
      working a crude tool.
      A good thing to do, therefore,
      when everything else
      that day has proved too challenging.
      The man takes one woman
      to a hotel bathroom.
      The hotel is the nicest hotel
      in all of Houston.
      To get to the private bathroom,
      they must walk through what was once
      a ballroom, all its gold and domes
      retained. The woman thinks it’s edifying
      just to see this kind of place.
      The music playing
      in the private bathroom
      while the man hands her a stack
      of paper towels
      to wipe off her chest
      is more electronic and sexual
      than she might have expected
      based on the traditional feel
      of the ballroom.
      The man feels it’s best
      not to hold the woman’s hand
      as they leave the hotel, because that
      could indicate a tenderness he thinks
      it best not to offer. At a bakery
      nearby they stop so she can eat
      a macaroon, and they get into
      a friendly argument about art
      that leaves them both
      feeling happy.

      from #46 - winter 2014

      Hannah Gamble

      “I started writing poetry when I was living in Bloomington, Indiana, working as a bank teller and hating my life. I joined a community women’s writing group for some kind of creative outlet, and, after about a month, got bored with the little memoirish essays I was writing. Within a month of writing the first poem I’d written in five years (I’d taken a poetry class as a college freshman) I decided to apply to MFA programs. I did it. I got into the University of Houston, and now, in addition to other things (singer, teacher, art model, friend, sibling, daughter), I am a writer.”