Sharing a Room

Despite the sag and stitch of brown shoes in the corner, morning

is white and piled bone, sheets. Torched
against fabric wallpaper. Muscles start

people. and a man at the window says:

You made no sound coming to bed.

In another room, the beds are made deep
blue and quilted over thin sheet, but over deep black
spring of which keeps no silver, all industrial foam and lift
and layer of chemical gel and plastic casing. painted
caster on heavy roller denting thick, carpet, and here I am

on one side of this bed,
stitching a doll’s head back together.

A friend says she has a student with theories
on being erased. This is back before old. before people. before room.

ask. ask nice. ask backwards. This is back
about a safety that is mostly coincidence, in other words

to say yes settles against a chair in the corner, at any age. This is back before
begins a long walk and a long walk ends

with whistle. or hum. There are studies suggesting we talk to ourselves imperceptibly
in a low hum. drag of one shine
like shoeshine whistle on leather
or shoe in a mirror.
or one pink shoe on a church pew. or one gold-edged shoe
up against a ringer washing tub. or one ballet slipper, this is back before,

I didn’t finish that sentence. What I originally thought was,

isn’t this some fucked up ploy to gender our bathrooms working its way into my hotel room.

There’s a man in my bed and by day, his glasses say safe. Instead

I wind up stumbling over the edge of cobbling, dumb ox
into foot mirror for someone offering

to hold up one leg, to keep up the pirouette, until
until they can come.