Lorraine Motel

Standing stoic as waves of reflection
break on your mean-masonry and glass.
Lorraine, you nurture petals that fall
from the first flower of memory.
You bear witness to the sorry streets
that were never run down or ever run up.
Sad Lorraine you are not a place of note.
You have no vaulted roof, or ramparts,
hallowed halls, stained glass, or choir stalls.
No terraced table of candle light
with its warm needle-points of comfort.
With the visiting congregation
I look up to your painful pulpit
the balcony, and the pinched pastel door,
and I mine my imagination
to illuminate this your sacred-scab;
and let your past puncture my today.
Drawing breath short and tight as my tears
well-up and over my soft-life-levees
to water my desiccated discomfort.