Cold Comfort

Cold Comfort

Devastated hotels of Trieste, all their rooms
Are for you. Tell me, who else would they be for?
But the night train you’re on shrieks past them,
Then abruptly stops like a woman wondering
Did she leave the stove on. No one gets on.
One man gets off. He will walk into the city
And suffer the street lamps strewing their light
Like girls tossing blossoms on a dog’s grave.
This is human life, this getting on and off trains
And these hotels so mutilated they’d fall apart 
If travelers didn’t dream in them from time
To time. Dreams give them something to hold,
Like the hand the young nurse offered soldiers
During the amputations sans anesthesia. 
It’s that hour of night the trees are kerosene-
Green, primed to burn, and one gesture of
Kindness could save your life. Trust that
It will, for it always has, or else you wouldn't
Be here. The girl sitting across from you
With the double helix curls will never undress
For you but she will assent to go under the water 
Of your eyes, like when she closes hers
And steps through the wall of a waterfall.
She knows too that everything beautiful 
Whispers to you through chapped lips.