HOTEL ROOMS

In New Orleans

at the International House Hotel

I’m on the edge of the bed.

Your slim body
is plastic sheeting stretched
across the angles and corners

of stones –
your thin elegant legs
in fraying jeans.

The rectangle lenses
of your glasses frame
each autumn leaf shaped eye.

This was before you learned
what feminine clothes
will do for you.

This was when
I was one of the very few
that got to see and touch
everything underneath.

Sprawled out
arms stretched
toward the head board;
the bed still made
underneath us.

Your smile
black ink
painting Chinese glyphs
with a soaked horse hair brush
I just knew when it dried
it would disappear.

Then there was Chicago.
I came in on a long flight –
you came by train.

a 20th century mechanism
on a crash course
with a 19th century machine
that moves by devouring the landscape.

When you opened the door
you were revealed
and we pressed our lips
with the force of feathers –

a bird’s wing

settling against its body.

And there was also
that suite in Mammoth Lakes
without air conditioning

Where I found you in the bathroom
straightening your sheen hair
long, nearly metallic,

black as the belly of a plum.

These hotel rooms
anchored to earth
rotating with our memories

coming to rest on the bed spreads
the carpets, a corner

in an empty bathroom.

Now I travel alone,
see the interiors,

request a wake up call,

and slam the drapes shut.

Too many sheet rock walls,
too many laminated channel guides,
over bleached sheets,
tiny plastic signs
about saving our planet.

The purple sun

setting over mountains in Denver,

the hollow moon

rising behind the St. Louis Arch,

in Alabama

everyone stares at me

while hunched over waffles.

Sitting in these rooms
seeing so clearly
ever key I've ever held
in my palm

every lock I've clicked
or replaced after so many things stolen
or hammered a flat head screw driver into.

I seethe at clocks

airports

distance

depleted bank accounts

work schedules

reports due

the anchors

the call times

the tolls

taxes

taxis

Atlas has dropped the Earth,

stretched out his arms

and shoved us apart.

The hardest
is packing to leave.

It takes convincing

that getting on my feet

lacing my shoes

collecting my tooth brush

will eventually be worth it.

That eventually, if I just outlive

these check ins

the limited view of the peep holes,

the industrial air conditioning,

the twisted blankets

the bad ideas

the meaningless conversations –

I’ll some how

traverse home.

The zipper on my ragged red suitcase
its crooked teeth
barbs that don't fit but hook.

Shoving everything
I've brought with me inside,
flipping over damp towels
to make sure a sock or t-shirt
or novel isn't abandoned.

Shutting down my laptop,
jamming my work into a back pack
downing the rest of
a water downed cocktail
from last night

with the blond from Canada
who invited me into the hot tub
but not her bed.

Filling my pockets with keys
earbuds, a boarding pass
receipts, a tinge of anger, hope
regret and a wrinkled thought of you.

I'm dragging it all behind me
as I kick the door open
yank my suitcase
by the handle
adjust the camera bag
on my arm

take one last look
over my shoulder
into the past

where you sit
smiling on the sofa
eating mushroom pizza
translucent
content
all perfect

white teeth.

It's green outside.

Christmas trees everywhere
over sized rabbits
a sextet of birds
the buzzing of every insect
I've come to know

I scan the empty
mess
make sure nothing
escapes
so I can leave
with most of what
still belongs to me.