Hotel #8


Pink, the smell of old men's hair.
Something hidden ticks in our bath-

room; the green drapes wither
like petals and light creeps in.

Ice coats the flags, the lost mittens
in the gutters. Sometimes you let me

take your cock in my mouth, but you
won't teach me the words I need to

buy a cup of tea. Your joints stick
with the cold, so the restaurant is too

far to walk .You wait for the bus
in the lobby and write postcards

to people I don't know. The red-hatted
man ahead of us in line winks, makes

his hand into a pistol and shoots us.
That night, I try to hold your hand

from my twin bed while the radiator
bangs like a hungry prisoner,
tin cup against iron bars, back and forth.

Tourist Visa, II

we can’t pronounce the names of the ruins/ you slip on the steep stones/ I lose a flip flop in the mud/ our t-shirts stick to our bellies/ the hotel bench swells and oozes/ you lose money in your hand/ rain at 4/I can't count in this language/ so many cameras in these ruins/ in the shade of the rock you swim and I watch for jellyfish/ fire ants in our sheets/the sockets spark and fail to connect/ we can't pronounce "money"/ the ruins we try not to see in the shade/ hours chase us through the streets/ rain at 4/honeysuckle swells/ our t-shirts ooze/ the buses chase the ruins/ a damp white smell/ the street names float past us/ the cameras around our t-shirts sweat/I lose/I lose/ the shopkeeper of the ruins standing inside the names of the ruins/the sun a honey-suckle swell/ the buses/the mud/tiendas/ tiendas/ jellyfish in your hand/we can't pronounce "Pepsis"/ in our hands/ a damp white smell

I'm at Everyday Genius today!

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2010/09/christine-hamm.html