in a hotel, for one night,
as I did last night–and if
it’s a suite–I try to use everything,
so I get my money’s worth.
I sit on the couch and in the
armchair at least once, and I
put my overnight bag on the long
faux-leather ottoman that triples
as a coffee table, a footrest, and
a luggage rack. I sit at the desk,
so I feel executive. I turn on all
the lights for at least a while, until
I feel guilty for using power, and
then I leave on only the sink and
bathroom lights, one light on the
desk, and also the bedside lamp
where I’ll charge my iPhone and
laptop when I finally fall asleep,
phone alarm set on snooze for 5:50
a.m.
I pull the television from the wall,
even if I decide not to watch
it as my electronic companion
that breaks the silence, that is
the background that makes me
feel less alone. But for tonight,
I don’t think I need that
feeling, so I stretch out onto
the king bed that I don’t need
all of, as it’s a nation of space!
My right foot can be Clark; my
left, Lewis, and we can explore
together our manifest destiny, our
Louisiana Purchase, without killing
buffalo, passenger pigeons, or tribes
of peoples, and without enslavement
on the east coast of this bed where
I sink in comfort without anyone’s help
in harvesting my sleep, and without
thinking of anyone’s history or dipping,
Balboa-like, my big toe in the Pacific
Ocean, which, for me, was in Santa
Monica, California where I once stayed
in a hotel just like this one, but
with my wife, so not the solitary and
Thoreauvian experience of this, my
little bit of Walden in this suite on
the second floor of this Hampton Inn
and Suites in Gaithersburg, Maryland,
where I will only use one washcloth,
one face and bath towel, and one
bath-mat when I leave the warm shower
of my suburban pond, the one with
the adjustable nozzle that massages
hard and pounding or soft and gently
vibrating along my spine.
But all I want is the simpler,
purer option of the shower
streaming full and straight on
my back, torso, and head where
I rinse out my Paul Mitchell
Awapuhi shampoo that I brought
with me to economize, and because
I like it, so companionable, so
familiar to me in almost all
the walks of my life, and in my
stay at this hotel and in
so many others.
Published in The New Guard Review
Pete Follansbee: Published Poems 