midnights at the end of summer

Backpackers

Loose handle
Insert Key
Lift it slightly
Try for three.
Feet -
The only smell
Sweat soaked leather shell.
Four bunks, eight beds -
Here’s yours
There’s mine
Fall asleep at closing time.
Flick the cockroach off
Then the dead moth.
Bed sways
It’s late -
Somebody below
Someone I don’t know.
Even later -
Through the open window
A woman’s voice: “That’s not okay. That’s not okay!”
Roll over, turn away
Hold my breath til Monday.

4/02/2014

Apartment bedroom’s
Windows open
Lie beneath the duvet
Head tipped back. 
See the  jagged silhouette of trees
Cutting that empty black.
Hear the leaves scratch the concrete
The floorboards above creak
The man below speak -
Drunk, loud, Pink Floyd on vinyl.
Catch the old elevator down 
To the ground floor.
Go outside, by the garages
Quietly finish your cigarette.
Stamp it out.
Leave again, become replaced by headlights returning.
The two emerge, bodies yearning.
Her heels drag
He slips the keys into his pocket -
A gesture of success
After eyes all day on that short blue dress.
Wind through the trees
Salt on the leaves
Street cleaner.
Black room
Black flat
Trip on the curled edge
Of the coarse door mat.

xx
Lou