Fortune [There’s only one horizon, yet it can be found]

By Dobby Gibson b. 1970 Dobby Gibson

There’s only one horizon, yet it can be found

in every direction we look.

You’d think it would be easier to get the hell out of here.

Just ask an iceberg.

In any Chinese restaurant, never order the 42.

Never answer your door during dinner,

it’s probably another little shit peddling Snickers.

Posing behind their windows,

the mannequins remind us of their absent stylist.

This is all hero worship.

This poem ends the same way they all do—

list everyone you’ve ever had sex with here:

Dobby Gibson, “Fortune [There’s only one horizon, yet it can be found]” from Skirmish. Copyright © 2009 by Dobby Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. www.graywolfpress.com

Source: Skirmish (Graywolf Press, 2009)

Biography

Born in Minneapolis, poet Dobby Gibson earned a BA at Connecticut College and an MFA at Indiana University. Originally in graduate school to study fiction, Gibson wrote his first poem at the age of 26. He described his defection from fiction in an interview with the online audio archive From the Fishouse: “I eventually spent all my time on my fiction working on beginnings and endings, and began to quit caring about plot and . . .

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