Blue Swallow Motel
It’s Christmas & you are not here.
I’m alone with a single malt & the words
Blue Swallow scrolled in electric blue cursive,
MOTEL blocked in red. Strange, I do not feel
alone. Hank, Johnny. Piñon smoke & Tucumcari sky.
Once I was a dagger between your legs, the keeper
of your secrets. Now my mouth is memory
& silence. Look:
this desert is a fat, dry cough.
The motel lit on old 66 like no time has passed.
A neon bird floats in cerulean lines, perched
against black night. A tattoo on the chest
of a restless one-night vagabond.
It was never enough for you to look
so innocent in dreams. When night
became too long & you hissed whiskey,
spat on that porch lit with cigarette ends. Strange,
I did not feel. When your fist. When stairs & concrete
met your pickled skull. Strange – I do not
feel alone. This rosary. Double barrel.
There is no sage to smudge
these walls, this skin.
Calloused hands.
Devil mouth.
Sarah Warren is a writer, musician, and professor. She has
taught literature and writing classes and also given music lessons since 2003,
and continues to gig around as a flutist and vocalist whenever possible. Sarah
is currently working toward a Ph.D. in English at the University
of North Texas Denton ,
and though she has lived in Texas
since 2006, she will always identify as a native Oklahoman. Sarah currently
teaches English composition at the University
of North Texas Denton
and at Richland College Dallas . Her writing has appeared
in Gravel and World Literature Today, and will also soon be featured in the
forthcoming anthology Talking Back and Looking Forward: Poetry and Prose for
Social Justice in Education (Rowan & Littlefield 2016).
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