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In California

Waking Up in Barstow


Perhaps it is this frail, columnar light
that mutes the room like in an old black-
and-white movie where no one is dancing.
It is surely the same light that goes idle
when it finds the pocked surface on the cinderblock
walls.  I think this shows me where the trouble lies.
There is only an outline of light around the black-out
      curtain.
Darkness governs modestly.

The wind blows.  The wind blows and then it doesn't.
For a moment I sense that someone has been murdered
and now lies brightly on the bathroom floor, blood
staining the pastel tiles and, more importantly,
the caulking.  The lesions on his throat make the
      porcelain
seem exceedingly brilliant and cruel.  And yet
the corpse looks complacent on the cold floor.
His shape is soon too austere and annoying.
The thought runs its length and goes.

A presence stays.  I have woken to a presence.
As my eyes adjust the light is enough to add
dimension to the room, recent memory and texture.
Like a scent or an oasis the presence adjusts, pervades,
      remains.
The range of my legs obscures the raised, cotton
      pattern
in the shallow bedspread.  There are dates
lying on the floor beneath the wall-mounted television.
Surely they fell during the night.  That is
how it happened.  The evidence chooses to remain,
to be of assistance, objective.  But what did we do
      last night?

The near-empty bottle of peach-flavored brandy
looks gaudy on the cheap, blond-wood night stand.
Above the bed a desert landscape glows from the wall.
Its artist used such unusual colors:  pink, lavender,
gold, sky blue, gray, and white.  I am intrigued
by them, by the way they sequester upon inspection,
and by the round, orange glass-stain beside the bottle
on the night stand.  How delicately these colors
impress their strength and leadership upon the room.
How easily they seize the light!

My wife stirs from her side of the bed.  Our first glance
leaves us feeling like strange, sudden lovers
with a lamentable past.  Even her fingers
are white imposters searching through her hair.
What did we do last night?  What did we fail
to discover?  I watch with interest as she walks
toward the sullen bathroom door.  And when she opens it
an army of light rushes in.  And then she make it
      brighter.

These pale green tiles in the bathroom remind me
of a fictitious time.  The sanitized glasses amuse me.
I remember now.  I remember feeling this way before.
Steam builds like a sweat on the cinderblock.
I disrobe before the opaque mirror and wait
for my wife to leave the shower.  To be naked here
in the bathroom of the cinderblock motel
makes me feel quite charmed.  The overhead globe is warm
and bright.  When I crank open the window I see
sagebrush spaced in an open, natural pattern running down
to the railroad yard, and then up to the base of the calico
      hills.
For a short while I keep my eyes on those hills
hoping to catch something the late winter might
have done to them.  But it only looks nice—nothing
in the air—clear and sharp and cold enough to wear
      a sweater.




 
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Collected Poetry

In California

Waking Up in Barstow
