Hotels in the Drift
somewhere snow lingers in the loins of distance, we
lick dampness off arms as time whiskers the windows, small white bruises
frozen
we travel toward each other from oppositional zones, furious
but winter stitched our bodies together, cavernous light hung against weathered air, shadows creaked
bent toward small openings of warmth, the gap in
names
shuttled between a bowl in the anteroom and the soap bellowing in a Papier-mâché netting, pivot
we shall too disappear, words caged in a key-locked black book, rhymes
set lose ink upon guests’ bodies, a carriage of hearts, hoof-clap clopping
a lantern glass
in the wind, thoughts engirdle—will you take form in the breath’s morning absolution, ever
ruminations, a playing deck of cards’ divestment, a late guest clocks in, memory unbuckles
ghost calligraphy writ small on the bathroom mirror with a finger, the skin’s ghost begs at barriers, ache-laughed
signature trappings
along the body as shade comes down in heliography, a witness pressed hard against the sheets, banner and map
knocking, a dark-bird’s sung-out sentiments spread wing, winter’s cadence
whelp, tongue-touched and worm-tied, so it seems down the alpine, the funitel abandoned
the moment
a second arm froze stiff, once we dreamed a gondola gone, was it only the imagined one
up the mountain, the light-burst puppet shadows in windows, the lobby boy’s gait and hunger
pears knifed on russet pillows, desire or a pretence galloping against something,
the abacus
turned you inside out, stories and bank loans and tattoos taken up with another silence or outspoken lips
what you once desired from the high cumulus in one small pane of light, love against the blue outside
an alphabet of lip-sharing and verb-ticking and simply, the was it all too much to ask
the lift'd light
a phantom mark in the snow, as a green floral neck peaked through its burrow, the pawing of a glow
who left us long ago, the years
once, your brother drank from a funeral vase where roses soaked up a eulogy, drunken
the mad break, the lukewarm and the loss pooled at our ankles, our socks drooped
our ache unrolled
in the corridors, the falling ice unbuttoned our hearts, flake by iridescent flake, the umbrella left behind at checkout,
do you feel the same fear as I on the back of the hunch of the night
memory stood stark at the foot of the bed, a periwinkle shadow took umbrage with the prints on the walls
in the early morning a sum sung over you turned away, the window unlatched and a key dropped a vowel at our knees
tap tap tap in the back room, a chipped sink bore a lather of soap and scent crossed what you were, once
here thought or there conveniently known
as you pulled from the relics, scaffolding and dried flowers from the old wear
my love
we managed to survive the wind’s drift as death unbuckled another and another and another, pregnant year.
