I ask him for a room.
He hands me a key hanging
from a fist of driftwood
and a piece of twine.
Number 8, he says,
without meeting my eye
and rattles off a mouthful of stairs
and corridors,
lefts and rights.
There's a phone ringing,
a girl laughing somewhere.
I get lost, I don't care.
I'm wandering along halls
daubed in layman's murals
of bad seascapes,
Linoleum licks at the
Soles of my shoes,
The predictable smell of nicotine
colours the stilted air.
And in a while
I'm on the right floor,
outside the right room.
My floating key slips noiselessly
into the lock
and I push through to find
two bodies in the curtained gloom.
They rise in slow-motioned protest
at my intrusion.
I back out,
flit down the hall, turn left,
then right, then take the stairs.
I push the key across the desk '
the rooms already taken, I say
to the man who isn't even there.
I step down and out
into the warm streets
of a Sydney evening.
