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.

Copyright Credit: Lynda Hull, “Jackson Hotel” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2006 by the Estate of Lynda Hull. Used by permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: Collected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2006)