SRO - THE MISSION

SRO - THE MISSION

My room

airshaft provides perpetual twilight

coughs through the wall

bathroom down the hall.

Downstairs

common room 
TV’s blue stammer

occasional daylight

across linoleum floor

as front door

          swings

open/shut

to traffic noise.

A

soul

enters/departs

no matter

          same

          same.

Rent receipt written in palsied hand.

Another week

          same

          same.

RW

Guanajuato, Mex.

03.18.2020

(SRO = single room occupancy.  I lived in that hotel for about 3 months.  Worked two jobs trying to put a plane ticket and some spending money together, trying to get to Hawaii.  Dishes at the Good Karma Café on Dolores, and day shifts at a nursing home on Van Ness.  Hotel room figures in another poem called Independence Noir.)