I’m in the motel outside of town,
slouched in the faded green armchair,
thumbing the Gideon Bible,
and, the TV muted, ignoring the weather report
about Florida’s lascivious sunshine.
In the sheets others have touched,
you will touch someone others have touched,
after I take the phone off the hook. Later,
I could go on about the Fountain of Youth
while we watch out the window
as retirees with Georgia license plates check in.
Tomorrow morning, you’ll step from the shower,
clean as a baptized baby, and find me still abed.
You’ll smoke, waiting on me to check out,
and then you’ll want to be taken to breakfast,
where you might look lovely, piddling with your eggs,
while I go on about “The Waste Land”
in the deserted parking lot.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 15, Issue 3.
John Hart was raised in Kansas City, KS and currently resides in Winter Park, FL. His poems have been published in the Antioch Review, Hopkins Review, New South, The Southern Review, Verse Daily, and Washington Square Review.
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A little late (but no later than last year), CPR Volume 13 is now on its way to the printer!