Double Tree
A vague, grey, Eastern European darkness, though,
as far as I know it should be daylight by now.
The remote for this machine isn’t working,
not even a blink. When I peek through the door
I can see the elevators, not another soul.
Patterns in the carpet change every glance—
Aztec, Gaelic, Corinthian…as if I’m standing
on a grand flowing architectural readout.
Walls and ceiling have the chalky fiber of bones
mixing into shapes like smiles and question marks.
This coffee doesn’t seem to be doing a thing.
I do sit-ups, push-ups, anything to get blood moving,
facing frosted windows on the other side of the room
that pulse like bubbling egg whites in a hot skillet.
It seems to take forever just to walk over there,
to pull the window open to its suicide-preventing limit:
a black tar rooftop below, a lake beyond that
through the trees, a sound like engines, roadways,
construction or someone breathing slowly in a dream.
I head down the long, empty hallway.
All this has the smooth confusion of a birth.
The corridors telescope out and out. I can see
the word Infinity, as if someone were writing it
over and over again into the air, the bland artwork.
Now I’m tipping and turning as if I’m below decks
on a ship at sea. My own inner ear tunes in
to a mysterious frequency— sound of a mariachi band,
a party, and up ahead I see ghost figures performing
a line dance and moving through walls like smoke.
I stop. The air feels like flesh. I reach and reach.
A film noir movie swipe—one thing vanishes after another:
door handles, stairways of light-glowing bloodstreams,
green emergency exit signs burning like commandments,
shooting star paths, and so much distance I am surprised,
shaking my head, then I say, wait a minute, I know this place,
as I rise through white cloud rippling hotel sheets.
Douglas Cole has published six poetry collections and the novel, The White Field, which won the American Fiction Award. His screenplay of The White Field won the Elegant Film Festival Award Best Unproduced Screenplay award. He has been nominated three time for the Pushcart and seven times for Best of the Net.
