Are you already hearing scents,
my coverless novel, thick as tonight?
Maybe you’ll wake up?
The coffee’s already done downstairs.
Downpours and winds
couldn’t get their hands on anyone inside this cheap motel.
Let the maid make up the bed
whenever she gets in!

Visitors arrive,
they’re here,
then vanish on their way.
Finally the newlyweds—they still are married now.
They die a little bit,
they’re ugly too,
but let them just stay friends
so that years later they can sing together
about this great party.

I do not know you
at all in this place, but I hope it
also takes you home like me, this sense
that home is there.
From high up above, as though toward islets
see the drifting seagulls
how they watch us
and howl with laughter.