Hotel, River View

The skin of the coastal river crawls

ten floors below, tugboats wedge

the night in, down the channel,

snagging the dark on their loop of lights.

A rag of wake-water ravels

from a barge across the harbor,

while a smudged, cut-out of moon

hangs on the edge of a blackness

vast enough to disappear in.

I tick in the caesura

of that wish. In the room,

ice melts in a bucket,

slipping chunks cutting the silence

with a sound like knuckles.

The walls are in methodic mauves,

the bureaus glossy and predatory.

Lavatory glasses give their thin

plastic promise that you are the first.

It is a stage awaiting its drama,

from the red domed light on the phone

for the message that must not miss,

to the mirrors large and flat

as desire, to the florid spreads

picked for disguise, to the black

box of bible in the drawer.

Stationery preens in its corner,

but what could possibly be said,

and to whom, to requite such

steady, blank attendance?

I can write all I need

yes no love goodbye

in the glaze of steam oozing

on the window glass, from the heat

of my breath, where I stand

watching the slow glitter

of the river and its traffic,

wondering how far I could go

on that black wing of night,

what avowals or farewells await

the rising or falling of curtains

in settings like these, how manifest

our choices really are:

a thumbed-up moon, already

dusted for fingerprints,

a room swelling with furniture.