new poem

Hotel Camphor

“This is not your business, nor the shut door, nor the votives, though
you think you know everything of worship.” –Kerri Webster

i.

Press your ear hard enough against
the mattress, right there, and it’s all
you hear—the unforgiving chuff of a steam engine,
the chamber valves opening and closing (closing
especially). A narrowing. A solace.

ii.

Stave these dreams of hiding drugs—
big ripe bags of green, hashish in dense
rectangulars, inky buttons of opium—
shrouding them in childhood clothing.

And the medicines lined up in your two eyes
shine, your new resolve an agonal breath.

iii.

Our Lady of Seratonin, of Norepinephrine,
Pray for us, snowing, hip-deep in dropped swords.
Patron of lost prescriptions, I swear
I will build cairns to mark the time between despairs.