On Why Sex Is Better in Hotel Rooms

A Sociological Study in Verse

The room is not our room,
And that’s sort of the point.

All the surfaces are hard.
Walnut veneer so smooth it feels wet, and brittle mirrors that
Judge, diminish, and augment in the blue-white light.
Even the carpet bristles like Astroturf.

The TV is always bad.
Sit-coms, sports and local weather on an
Oversized screen more suited to the
Unseen porn that sizzles in the ether
Like a downed power line.

The bed is always great.
Cool, clean, anonymous, enormous–
The only inviting thing in this
Unforgiving space.

We always drink too much,
And that, too, is sort of the point.

No train to catch or dogs to walk,
The wake-up call, the check-out time can wait.
The house bottle, like the sex, transformed by hours
Of rented oblivion.

And so, we cleave–
A conga line of two,
Danced as a charm against the Darkness.
Forgetting that you are no longer young:
Forgiving the old man I have become.

The French say, “La nuit, tous les chats sont gris,”
And we are they–two graying cats, kneading each other,
Screwing sweetly, silently in Hopper’s neon Eden,
Booked by the night.