Motel

Neon red mirrored in a puddle, bloodshed and spilled

rubies at her feet. Smeared lipstick and mascara-clumpy

lashes and brown hair soaked dark with stray rain.

Her umbrella drip-drips shimmery crimson onto my carpet

and she tells me Sorry, I don’t have money and she’s

desperate, I know, as are all midnight guests. She

takes interest in the streamlined cityscape long-exposure

hanging crooked by my counter, and I can tell she’s

already aware time lapses do hellholes like this

too much justice. I’m tempted to tell her get out, walk

three steps left, make do with the side overhang, but

then I think, sickly, of mirrors and bloodshed and

me and her and a lot of other ugly things, so instead I say

Room 218 is free, here’s your key and offer her a

guava candy from the bowl on the far side of the counter.

Her single plastic heel throbs a muffled limp on the

coffee-stained carpet as she hurries off. Purple

cocktail dress ripped at the back, heart-colored bruise

on her jaw. The stoplight outside is still bleeding. I turn

to face the entrance again, to wait for the next midnight

guest to step through the door. I don’t ask her to stay and

tell me her story.