The Blues Motel

They have got dead-beat chicks on reception,
ripe from Vegas rehab, necking pink gin.
They have got peeling absinthe wallpaper
and creaking beds in every guest’s room.
They’ve got flyers about missing children
pasted on notice boards; failed novels
of suicides stuffed behind bureaus.
On the jukebox they play country music
about dirt poor folk who play fast, die young.
Most nights flies scratch their legs like violins.
Cicadas lullaby with saw-tooth tongues.
The water in the faucets is rust-taupe,
the shower curtains are ripped open
as though recently knifed, your neighbours
both sides—bickering lovers, regardless
of how much time you spend banging the walls.
The pills you take are dust-bowl sienna,
corral mustang herds of choice delusions,
snorting their brain fog, running wild like trucks’
swerve lights across the lantern of the room.