Robbie Gamble

Robbie Gamble’s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Lunch Ticket, RHINO, Slipstream, and Rust + Moth. He was the winner of the 2017 Carve Poetry prize. He worked for many years as a nurse practitioner caring for homeless people, and now divides his time between Boston and Vermont.

Nocturne on a Bed of Couscous

Years ago, a tornado swelled

one dawn and nicked into a corner

of a quiet suburb, uprooting a tree

and flinging it through the bedroom

of the parents of my friend, killing

her mother instantly, while her father

lay in bed unscathed next to his spouse.

Tonight, we will soon turn in, aware

that twenty-two untethered tons

of rocket booster are predicted to slam

somewhere into the planet before sunrise.

Odds are unlikely that Anna

would predecease me for any reason

on this night, that I would awake

a widower. Even more infinitesimal

that a glowing chunk of space debris

would punch through our ridge beam

to take one or both of us out

in a sizzle of headboard and linens.

We had such a lovely dinner this evening:

duck breast and oyster mushrooms

and sweet new asparagus, yet

what is this rise of bile now

in the wake of such delightful

forkfuls, in the moment the beast

shudders, tumbles off its perigee?