La Quinta

Fog began the morning

The sun ate through the gloom like a single hole punch in a piece of card

No cartoon beams of light

Past the townhouse, straight to central station

The first time you were dropped off in your brother's car

I don't think it's luck that we stayed in touch

Pale pink petals touch the surface of the pool

And the curves of the contours remind me of your absence

My eyes are bleached

Strip lighting sparking on and off

Blinking lashes suspended above

The cab driver barely resembles his photograph

Beneath the plastic laminate and its curling edges

I wonder how else the years have marked him

This country, it goes on and on

Certainty comes, however fleeting

We spent one night in one room

Put one leg underneath the other

It'll fall asleep before you do

You loosen the band and your hair unfolds like flames.

You tie the ribbon to your wrist

So we stand and stare at the morning rush hour

In a balcony scene

We were there.

Where was the air?

We were there.

Where was the air?

At toll stations we tossed cents into a plastic catching funnel that looks like an upturned hockey mask