In the motel ice machine, the cubes came out coughing,
each one cloudy as a dead man’s thumbnail.
A woman in a fur coat stole a bucketful at dawn
and walked barefoot back to room 12 through cigarette gravel.
The hallway smelled of bleach, old lust, and aquarium heat.
My shirt still had lipstick on it from somebody who hated me politely.
I put one cube on my tongue and tasted radiator, penny, moon.
Behind the vending machine, something small kept scratching at God.
The TV preached weather to an empty chair.
When she came back for more, her mascara had gone feral.
We nodded like two cashiers at the end of the world,
and watched the ice melt faster than our good intentions.