Hilton

 

Hilton

 

The last time he was here,

the Hilton had tasted of smoke.

And now, that sour dance on the tongue —

he pulls back on teeth, but some

remains to the strains of Temples,

Strange or Be Forgotten;

different, but still the same.

 

Likely this is an old, old playlist,

riffing on times he was kissed

by someone else entirely.

Was it once bliss? Ah, yes — risk,

to be sure. But after four stages

fell to earth in flaming circles,

against coronas black and purple,

and he didn’t die — or so it seemed —

she only imprinted herself in dreams.

 

And here, in hemispheres

that nightly tear themselves apart,

then, in coiled collision, return together

as if by magnets or by springs,

the one against the other sings —

she be the left, and he the right —

eternally they fight

over lyrics damnable, with words that burn,

in turns of phrase he long ago learned

and gladly lends them.

 

Let those two be a bickering purgative

while he straps on the black Yamaha,

or chestnut-and-white Aria;

runs up through the C major,

slips down into the relative minor —

for nothing could be finer

than where she will be waiting for him:

his small one, loud in voice,

who in one fell swoop

has scissors-cut, paper-wrapped, rock-looped

and destroyed old Möbius.

 

During the shortening days,

to find himself back

and taste all the smoke he lacks —

because she crushed, with fists,

his final pack.