"Early Show," by Kevin Young

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Early Show

Here even the darkness
is watered down—

Shades drawn
won't keep out dawn,

Won't bring me sleep
or us any closer—

The gap in our pushed-together
twin beds grows wider.

Regret a green thing
all morning I been

Watering—not that
it needs it—

Even untended my mind
weed-filled, wild.

Nothing wakes him—
not the trucks' hum

Backing up, or the woman
who knocks loud, trading

The hotel's ghostly towels
but letting the sheets

Stay unchanged.

Lunchtime,
the adultery hour—

The flophouse fills
with couples telling

Work they need
an extra hour

For the doctor—
you can hear them in the hall

Practicing coughs
& examining each

Other's tonsils. Ah—

If despair had a sound
it would be: DO NOT DISTURB.

If despair has a sound
it's the muggled, raised

Voices of the pair next door
who've lived here

In One-Star Manor forever
yet still pay by the week

—Love's an iffy lease—

Or worse may be
the sharp silence

That follows every fight.
While the secretaries

& file clerks & junior
execs undress—

Trade their shorthand kisses—

I run what HOT
is left (though hard

To know, marked COLD)
till I steam the mirrors

Like car windows
in a prom's parking lot

& I can't see myself.

Despair,
I know, is the ham radio

On low, crackling
like rain & announcing

Today's game
has been called—a first—

On account of too much sun