Boardinghouse with No Visible Address

So, I thought,

as the door was unlocked

and the landlord disappeared (no,

he actually disappeared)

and I got to examine the room

unobserved. There

it stood

in its gray corner: 

the narrow bed, sheets

the color of old aspirin.

Maybe all this had occurred

somewhere inside me

already, or

was just about to.

Is there a choice?

Is there

even a difference? Familiar,

familiar but not

yet remembered ...

The small narrow bed.

I had often wondered

where I would find it, and

what it would look like.

Don’t you?

It was so awful

I couldn’t speak. Then

maybe you ought to lie down for a minute, I heard myself

thinking. I mean

if  you are having that much trouble

functioning. And when

was the last time

with genuine sorrow

and longing to change

you got on your knees?

I could get some work done

here, I shrugged;

I had done it before.

I would work without cease.

Oh, I would stay awake

if only from horror

at the thought of waking

up here. Ma,

a voice spoke from the darkness

in the back seat where

a long thin man lay,

arms crossed

on his chest,

while they cruised slowly up and down

straining to make out the numbers

over unlighted doors,

the midnight doctor’s;

in his hurt mind

he was already merging

with a black Mississippi

of mercy, the sweat pouring off him

as though he’d been doused

with a bucket of ice water

as he lay sleeping. “I saw the light,”

they kept screaming. “Do

I saw the light!”