Hotel

Then I was again
that vacant room. Guests were 

various: my death again 
and beautiful. Then again, 

in different dress. Once, 
in a jacquard suit 

tapped my goat-hoof, 
looking out the fogged window—

that’s my Janus eye—
watching a crew

replace the backlights 
of a billboard. Once, 

with a beard of locusts, 
lips of cold steel, a silica tongue. 

Once, in satin sat to smoke 
and leaned a plastic ear

against the warming 
wall of me. New century.

A closing throat. Not closed.
I love my killed familiars.