Five Points, Vol. 1 No. 3
Spring / Summer 1997From Ann Beattie, “It’s not that the right people ever notice things; it’s the wrong people.”
Sample Content
William Matthews
Hotel St. Pierre, Paris, 1995
I rose six floors in one of those birdcage
ascenseurs the stairs spiraled around,
then laid exhausted claim to my small room.
Swimming upstream against my French all day
at a translation conference had done
me in: the ghettos of English and sleep
welcomed their son back from Babel, at least—
maybe from Babble. I showered and flung
my rented windows open to lure some
cool air in while I dreamed I couldn’t find
someplace I knew so well I ached. I woke
to find a pigeon clamped to my toe,
his crimson-ringed eyes staring into mine,
both of us restive, mute and not at home.