If Good Memories Had Value, I'd Be Driving A Porcshe

Conspicuous love delivered, in a dance,
bluntly offered on dull linoleum with peanut shells
and shoes sticking  from day old unused beer
Aberrant desires knitted to pulsing flashy rhythms,
she whispered, “Follow me,” before I knew her name
As strobed back lit bodies flailed against loneliness,
we left, seeking different answers to similar questions

Our lust began in earnest at Bay's Motel
The neon O was missing, cast in red tinted darkness
(An ominous foreshadowing of coming events,
or, perhaps destiny's hint at life's illusions)
We noticed but didn't care, paying money through
thick plexiglass to a man with an exhausted liver
Room 115 beckoned, the siren's song of our desires

Two ravenous people with yet acquired tastes
fulfilling dreams they could never share with others
While giggling on a decade old flowered coverlet,
they discovered each other and youth's rejuvenation
repeating rapture's journey throughout the night
Love uttered in many tongues with secret messages
known only to their souls, meaningless in reality

The daughter may have been conceived at Bay's
or, shortly thereafter, at another place, in a different time
but life seeped under the doorway and into their whispers
like a relentless conflicted siege of not nows,
newer cars, and pretended responsibilities
Passion dispensed when required, as negotiation,
and hopes held private to render them safe

Ten years pass within the rebirth of many lifetimes
and, that night, once momentous, became trivial
Joyful memories now shoulder the weight of
missed expectations and words not retracted
The O was fixed but, like our waning hearts,
Room 115 shows its age and constant misguided use
Today I lay alone, counting the nightstand's cigarette burns

Minds wander when the bricks of your house fall down
transforming aftermath's rubble into manic indecision
and all thoughts connect to phantom conspiracies
where even God forsakes pleas from the unforgiven
One is not the loneliest number you'll ever do
My Double Jeopardy answer? “What is three minus two?”