Motel

Poem and Art “Motel” by Royal Young Acrylic on canvas

Incognito underground

Subway tunnel

Tremors

Where we lived out

All our fantasies

Before the hordes

Got here

They wouldn’t have

Dared come

In the dangerous days

When everything was safer

More rich

Because it was broken

My love licked along

 The elevated tracks

 My drunkenness

 Bottomless

 On empty platforms

 Swaying

Anger, fear and failure

Burst fires in the rubble

Of 25 cent chip bags,

Newspapers

And

Empty cigarette packs

The last year of high school

I took the bus

After 9/11 my parents

Were scared

Of anthrax in the subways

 It was close

 To flying