Love Poem: Vacation Fugue
Eric Ashford Avatar
Written by: Eric Ashford

Vacation Fugue

At the deep end of night
when all that can be seen is the digital clock
and the light under the corridor door,
we slip out of our personas -
a fumbled attempt at drowsy love-play;
the plethora of giant pillows
hiding us from ourselves.

The hotel elevator takes us further
into a story we have already written.
Day 3 blurs, sight-seeing
pictures long poured
from the concrete mixer of time.
The machinery of a life
rusts absent-mindedly somewhere else.

Morning arrives in untidy disarray.
The vacation puts on your holiday face and pants,
the pants offer to go get Danish
and a yoghurt from the breakfast bar
while your partner
paints her features a deeper shade of alien hue.