The heat stank when you turned it on
This was the Desert Star, the Redbird
Inn, the half-off room at the Rose
Hotel Casino with coffee vouchers
you could cross the sunken
gaming floor to redeem
7 a.m. and people with soft collars tucked out
over sweatshirts drinking Pepsi
at the slot machines. Wherever you were
was the same place at the Motel 6, an
orange bedspread. Hairs I pulled out
would drift into loose webs
with the others’ underneath the bed. It felt almost
