He awakes in a midnight of
Brilliantine and chiffon.
The streamline headlights
Of a million hunched roadsters trawl the freeway,

Like cold beetles,
Black on silver tarmac,
You could pass your hand over the curves of these jalopies
And the flow would never end.

The winter’s come in
But it’s mild under bruisy rain.
Moon water in the culverts.
There are two tiers of road.
One on its pediments
Is eye level with the second floor room.

Neon hisses across his shoulders
MOTEL
In steely green.
It doesn’t reach far across the bed.

She lies perfectly still, intangible,
Save for her red hair fanning the pillow
And the scallop folds of cheap sheets.

Next to a paper weight saluki
In dead onyx
He takes up his keys,
Like a handful of carved ice

And walks to the bathroom
To wash away the lipstick smears,

But he hesitates
And instead buries his face in a bowl of roses –
Babies’ ear petals against his skin.
Thorns pierce his eyes.

He gropes for the door,
The stairs,
The foyer,

And stumbles, blind with blood
Into the shoaling traffic.