Category Archives: Paul Hostovsky

THE REPUBLICANS

So random the way it touched down
when we were sitting there talking about
the Republicans. You said: I stand
corrected. And then a pause opened up
like the brief, warm, unstable condition
ahead of a cold front, the kind that spawns
tornadoes. And inside of that pause your stuffy
I stand corrected stood there stiffly
ridiculous and resonating in the itchy
combustible air between us, and it was so
random, and it was so ordinary, like opening
a window, and then another, the way my eyes
widened and your eyes widened in sympathy
like a mutual last gasp before it hit us
and we burst into uncontrollable and inexorable
and exorbitant laughter rotating violently
between us and around us and inside of us,
churning and merciless and devastating,
wreaking havoc with my respiratory system,
and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t talk
and my face hurt and my head hurt and my jaw,
and just when I thought it was over I looked up
and saw another one coming.