‘Hostel’: A Poem by Rachel Kirk

Image by Greg Lilly

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The darkness in the room is ripe and
heavy, giving off the heady
scent of bodies, breathing.

In another language only
breathing sounds the same.

I shift an arm and she moves too,
my double in the bed next door.
Skin rubs against cheap sheets
and rustles, soft – the sound of trees.

A sharp breath and she mirrors it,
the mirror showing two dark shapes together.
Back at home, I know, the sunlight’s
bleeding out to fill the empty landscape, waiting.

When I turn to her I hear her
turning. Listen to the foreign crackling
of the sheets that lie beside me.
In my head, at home

they’re waking. And I know the faces
yawning in the morning light, the
touches of them. And I hear her breathing.

Two marionettes on the same strings.
A hand’s breadth away, just one.