Friday poem

Days Inn from Linda Smukler's Home In Three Days. Don't Wash.

It was astonishing to walk into room 233 at the Days Inn / the door open for us / to turn on the lights and to close the curtains / to see you first locked into that tan recliner as I sat on the (slightly darker) tan carpet / my back up against the coarse blue bedspread / to smell disinfectant and to drink bitter tea / to feel the minutes of our short afternoon slip away into nervousness and the prints on the off-white walls / then how you lay down on the bed / and I lay next to you / to kiss / no to talk / to get comfortable with each other again / we heard raised voices from somewhere / from the side or overhead / we couldn't figure out where / perhaps a meeting or ten TVs / screaming children or a gathering of boys to watch the football game / these were all possibilities as gradually the voices got so loud I called the front desk to complain / the desk clerk said the voices were coming from below something religious for sure / evangelists or a revival meeting / I told the clerk that I would call her back if we needed to move / then you asked me to turn off the hard lights and I did and lay back down next to you and then on top of you and I finally forgave myself for letting you wait at the train station / I remember you turned me over and how delirious I became at your touch and at a certain point I was overwhelmed with the desire to enter you and all the while beneath us they called on the Lord / they called for salvation / the desk called and out of breath I answered and said we were fine and did not want to move and it was true / the room had become as if lighted by candles and we lay on a sacred bier accompanied by hosannas and hallelujahs / and the chalice of your scent the icon of your face / the idols of your breasts in black lace / the staff of your finger in my ass and my cock in your cunt / our coming joined from below by shouts and applause and the exalted blessings of the possessed