A Courtyard Marriot outside Trenton

Standing on a porcelain husk

in the Courtyard

Marriot outside Trenton

I am naked and cannot bear 

travel, soaked through my clothes.

I cannot scrub off the odor of ages

one through one hundred,

the grease from Southwest 

seats, all thoughts of passing

through and through and terminals.

Outside is not the solution.

There is no courtyard

only a beige wall with careful hedges

and a shadow made of dirt 

tracing scorched geometry on concrete 

where once a gazebo grazed. Beyond the wall

is a dumpster, a construction machine,

a parking lot.

Hard water hits the husk

and I am porcelain.

The shower curtain screams

when moved. To flush 

appears to tear a hole,

shouting suction, through the night

to reach or pull whatever there is

beyond. 

A hotel: O, pattern book of vague hospitality,

of repeating sterile and sterile

repeating, of squares and stairs

and sleek machined chairs,

molded soles and well-worn carpet 

patterned never to reveal a spill.

I think they put the drier 

down the hall on a respirator

or an IV drip that is no longer

dripping and is that why you always said to 

defrib before bed? 

The shower taps out 

only hollow time. I don't

know what the effect is.

Osteoporotic jazz?

Beating again the tub wall

of ages no one is counting.

I don't know how to end things.

I never did. A twisted wreck,

though? A cardiac event 

and fourteen broken ribs?

Standing on a porcelain husk

in the Courtyard

Marriot outside Trenton

I am naked and cannot bear 

staying here, I will scrub 

and scrub until the odor of ages

one through one hundred,

the grease from all thoughts of passing,

Southwest seats.