By George Bishop
I was thinking someone slept poorly here
the night before as I pulled the bed sheets
back, dreaming of new ways to keep from
dreaming. In my drinking days such visions
weren’t easy to come by, I rarely appeared,
keeping my good eye on the present as it
sat somewhere in the room staring at itself
like a dead star. I’ve never been able to wish
on anything other than that, so here I am
surrounded by the afterglow of stale tobacco
and bad booze, sleepless. I think I’ll stay
another night, maybe see what the maid
is made of—after all, the desk clerk threw me
the keys like I’d been here before. Same floor,
same room, just the wrong hotel, different night—
someone checking out inside, empty rooms full
of new moons and old nightmares, the light
of sleep still too far away to make out a face.
[More poems by George Bishop]
