Kevin Young - Early Show

[natelyswhore.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 truck's 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 muffled, 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

& files 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.