Jackson Hotel

Sometimes after hours of wine I can almost see
the night gliding in low off the harbor
down the long avenues of shop windows

past mannequins, perfect in their gestures.
I leave some water steaming on the gas ring
and sometimes I can slip from my body,

almost find the single word to prevent evenings
that absolve nothing, a winter lived alone
and cold. Rooms where you somehow marry

the losses of strangers that tremble
on the walls like the hands
of the dancer next door, luminous

with Methedrine, she taps walls for hours
murmuring about the silver she swears
lines the building, the hallways

where each night drunks stammer their
usual rosary until they come to rest
beneath the tarnished numbers, the bulbs

that star each ceiling.
I must tell you I am afraid to sit here
losing myself to the hour's slow erasure

until I know myself only by this cold weight,
this hand on my lap, palm up.
I want to still the dancer's hands

in mine, to talk about forgiveness
and what we leave behind—faces
and cities, the small emergencies

of nights. I say nothing, but
leaning on the sill, I watch her leave
at that moment

when the first taxis start rolling
to the lights of Chinatown, powered
by sad and human desire. I watch her fade

down the street until she's a smudge,
violent in the circle of my breath. A figure
so small I could cup her in my hands.