In Another Mug Shot

The camera picked up
the light on the plastic
of my fake leather jacket.
Also, my hair was too long
and my mustache
gave me the shifty look
often found in mug shots.
In fact it was a mug shot
taken in the basement
of the Hall of Justice
in 1968—or Injustice
as we called it. Now,
it’s almost December
2002, and I’m getting ready
to welcome my daughter
home from college. My hair
is shorter and my beard
neatly clipped, but the
mug shot would come out
with the same shifty look.
The change is in something else—
not in the way I look or
the suit jacket I’m wearing
instead of fake leather—
but in the background
of the mug shot. Can you
see it—the war taking shape?
It shines like a new war,
like only a new war can.


ISBN 0-9745909-7-5
31 pages $9
“Salner’s work is effortlessly resonant. The sheen of his surfaces belies their depths. His compassion is witty and his wit compassionate. He is one of those rare poets who seem to have found their own voices.” —Alex Stein, author of When I Write My Novel

David Salner has been an iron ore miner, steel worker, garment worker, and machinist. His poems have appeared in the Iowa Review, Threepenny Review, Parting Gifts, Poets Against the War, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals.