The hotel looks abandoned, but it’s open:
Fast-food architectural lines, three shades of gray,
Darker and darker and, above, night sky;
All around, canary-grass that could hide a man.

Three flag poles out front, two of them bare,
Stab the flowerless banks of dehydrated soil.
A single flag in the center looks half-mast
But only droops on its halyard from disregard.

Some strands of Christmas lights are still strung up,
Sagging from eaves and lean, leafless trees,
But no one’s thought to turn them on tonight,
The holidays over, a new year not yet here.

A curled-up bandage, slipped off someone’s toe,
Curls up at pool’s edge. At four AM I wake
To deafening thuds that shake the thin walls,
And then there’s nothing, just the hum of vents.

The hotel’s rich with guests, the ones who came
And never left, who never wanted to be
Alone again. They stay to dream long dreams
About the place until at last it’s real.

Half the doors here are ajar, leaching wedges
Of weird light onto the crazed carpet,
Sinister geometries of mustard and rust
Seamed with raw ore, making themselves a maze.

Along the off-ramp semis growl all night,
Rigged with astounding electrical arrays
Like royal war elephants on parade,
Their nearing trains of light joining as one.