Neil McKay's Shared Poems

In a hotel,
In Ellensburg,
My restless mind
Pulls me out of bed
And I walk alone
Down the tracks
Crossing over to the wrong side,
When the train comes by,
To where the Transfer Station stinks
Where forklift drivers move pallets
From one warehouse
To another.
And foremen in hardhats
Stare at blueprints,
Pull cigarettes from that familiar
Red and white carton.
I watch and I want
To ask them for work,
Something to do so I
Have a reason to stay
A way to start over.
Lover, would you forgive me
If I never came back?

Eating miniature doughnuts and drinking coffee
Alone in your kitchen.
On the other side of the wall you
Begin to stir. The glow from
Last night's laughter still surrounds me.

From the damp shelter of our tent,
I wake to insistent calls.
The crows will have their say.

I scramble down to the water's quiet edge.
The fingerlings float by and wait for
River insects to make their daily sacrifice
For the good of the food chain.

Birch tree soldiers hold fast on the opposite shore
Clouds accumulate in the east,
Halted by foothills.

September chill erases the memory of yesterday's hot afternoon.
Eventually, the day will again heat up with activity.
Possibilities exist in present tense:
Could we stay happy here?

This house seems empty this morning
And the cat cannot understand.
He does not connect the For Sale sign
on the roadside with the uncharacteristically
tidy rooms he roams through.

The house is a motel this morning
Inoffensive paintings and the books are fewer on the shelves.
They are organized by color and not by subject.
James' Tropic of Cancer and Balzac's Droll Stories
Displayed in spite of their content.

The house is quiet this morning
Save for the meowling of the cat
Who calls for answers in the empty rooms
And longs for the murmur of voices
At the kitchen table.

A king sized bed
Would allow us the pleasure
of sleeping together
in the shape of a capital T

Rather than the parallel lines
Of an = sign
That describe our nights now,

We might become the letter L or
the number 7 or maybe
we could lie like an X.