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Gabriel Hart

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Shelter to Cinder

I tore apart the tweaker’s shack
now, firewood for the winter
my little way of getting back
at them, when they burnt
their shelter to cinder
their field mice
escaped
to bunk with me
assuming they were evading
flame
yet all I’m doing here: waiting
for the half-sane
human being
to earn
my heating
a reason
to learn
the discipline
of a controlled
burn

Gabriel Hart lives in Morongo Valley in California’s High Desert. His literary-pulp collection Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell is out now from Close to the Bone (U.K.). He's the author of Palm Springs noir novelette A Return To Spring (2020, Mannison Press), the dispo-pocalyptic twin-novel Virgins In Reverse / The Intrusion (2019, Traveling Shoes Press), his debut poetry collection Unsongs Vol. 1., and the Pushcart-nominated story "The Maid and the Maidens." He's a regular contributor at Lit Reactor and Los Angeles Review of Books.


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