Hotel #7


Are you high? you whispered. The pillows hummed
like sweet pools of lit amethysts, the sheets as smooth

as a girl's long, long back. You worried about cameras
hidden in the walls. I worried that our neighbors' mumbling

had a pulse, a morse-like code. Vending machines rang
robotically, unsteadily, downstairs. Do you want me to be?

Your face edged by the deep blue glow of the pool at night,
how my feet moved so slowly through it, swish, swish.

The 24 Hour Flu


Was what she called it for weeks: all night popcorn,
all night kitchen-wall scouring, all night swearing

and weeping with her hand over the stove's red ringlets.
And then little blue pills with sugar and coffee to help

my headache. We traded lipsticks in hotel parking lots,
me in the front seat, freezing in blue pajamas. Look

what you've done to your daughter, she was always
yelling at someone, somewhere. In the rearview
mirror, I mouthed to myself, I can't watch.

Hotel #10


Aqua cinderblock, channel stuck
to the preacher's face, the curling

message along the bottom promising
you an answer to your call. The air

conditioner, humming, dripping
like a sick bulldog. The mattress

dipping in the center like a punched-in
stomach. How the doorknob breaks

after the second day, so one of us
has to stay awake all the time. The last

coke from the vending machine, ticking
on the nightstand farthest away from me.

Your mother on the phone. Your girl-
friend. So hot it hurts to touch the pink

blanket; you slip a wet washcloth
under my neck. I touch your hair

with my tongue as you sleep-talk.
Comfort, lasting a minute.

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.

Tuesday, Chico


The hotel swimming pool,
full of floppy children and
chemical stink. The fly
dying on my nightstand.
A quarter and magic fingers
for two minutes. Orange
diamond, black diamond,
orange -- the bedspread reeks
of bleach and violets. I need
to understand some things,
you said, some things involving
her. This time, I left.

July is listless and self-conscious;
I'm avoiding the beach,
my bathing suit has an
embarrassing hole. The ceiling
fan weeps rust every so often,
and I wonder what happened
to our bug-eyed goldfish, the red
potato, pierced with toothpicks
and string, that was sprouting
in a glass by the kitchen window.

I'm studying the way people use
space, you said when we first
met, at the party in the house
without electricity. I fell down
the back stairs and you watched
me, then offered me a hand
when you saw I was done.