Interrogation Room

by

J. R. Salling

Stranger at the threshold,
you flash a secondhand invitation
and seek cover
when paranoia seeds the clouds.

Spine-faded profiles,
rosettes of a grand civilization,
their glyphs without a key,
their tomes impenetrable.

Sour wine amplifies the text.
Eyes of radium,
long past their half-life,
seek tainted truths.

Your barbaric ancestry charted:
potato diggers from leprous gulags,
barefooted fools from the hollows.

You refuse to speak of the buried
and pull tight the blanket of night
when the chill becomes unbearable.

 

 

 

J. R. Salling is an antiquarian bookseller specializing in the history of science and medicine, a fact sometimes reflected in his written work, more often not. His writings have appeared in Pindeldyboz, Flashquake, Eyeshot, Thieves Jargon, Poor Mojo's Almanac and Gator Springs Gazette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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