Personal effects all set
to play a game of hotel-room chess:
the dance of chambermaid and mistress.
These 5 days my oral offerings --
toothpaste, brush, the stalks of hygiene --
I prop the stems in glass
to bloom in the bathroom mirror.
These 5 nights too, I come home late
and proud of conquest,
and she has turned my bedding down
and, insisting on another order,
nested my implements in folds of white.
I read a prime and bridal commentary
on the affairs of my clean mouth.
Does she find the poems set like teeth
sheathed in black lacquer of the desk
flashing all I care for?
How unfolds her plot, the strategic cohabitation
of our empty room?