Hershey’s Kisses in crinkly tin foil melt
in the shaft of light on the table.
Liquid chocolate slicks the surface.
Flamingo pink shag rugs in cheap motels
aren’t enough. The rumpled bag of garbage stinks
of rotten cherries, days-old chicken.
The blistering mirage of high-desert noon wavers
the yellow air like a vibraphone:
vibrant. Squint your eyes
against electric blues and greens.
The woman below at the front desk
sports shellacked white hair, cat-eyes,
eyes you. Knows you’re a cool cat, up to no good.
You light a menthol, puff a smoke ring
to fog her glasses up.
Bandits lack appendages; your wooden peg
paws the floor like a hungry coonhound.
You snuff the cigarette
with the peg, grin as she gasps.
The roar of heat sheens sweat,
drips onto your one peeping boot.
Bug-eyed flies – turquoise, vermillion,
amethyst – circle, settle.
You nod, gravely.
The jitterbug upstairs, in her electric Kool-Aid tangerine
lip gloss, sits on plush, frilly crimson quilts,
waits petulantly. Her pink and black bodice chides
as she throws down the menthols,
says she doesn’t want flies inside.
Embarrassed, you wave them off. The peg quivers
in the pink shag. She licks melted chocolate from the table,
smears it on her feet, lifts a graceful leg, en pointe.
The doorway’s blocked by the coonhound,
so you spin quick, hop out the open window,
land on a lizard, whose squashed remains
you will ever preserve on your car dash.