This is the Hotel Cavalier with its orange
neon sign sending Morse code
to the Malnourished, those hungering

for even the imitation of love.
This is the Hotel Cavalier with its gray
rooms and Soviet light schemes, hiding

spies, whores and lovers equally.
Here is my room grey then orange
Pulsing, Throbbing, Contracting, Expanding

like a heart turned to stomach
I sit on the toilet counting the blue and white tiles
at the base of the sink. She walks past me and I catch

A glimpse of hip flesh and leg.--
Someone is desperately fucking In the room
next door, like the banging from a coffin

before its put into the ground.
She stands in the kitchenette pouring
a glass of wine from a box. She walks past

me brushes my cheek with a prosthetic hook.
Love is more or less abstract.

I sit on the chair next to the window
count the rungs on the fire escape. look
back into the dark room— The inhale

of her cigarette smoke makes her face
glow monstrously. I find myself tethered
to the orange-gray smoke of her exhale.

We lay in each others arms troubled
by the far off sounds of Butchers –


Previously Published in The Delinquent (United Kingdom)