The Hudson Hotel by R.E. L'Hussier

At night – our affair
is conducted inside a sealed vessel –

Shut off from the world to boil
and cool according to its own laws.

I touch the history of your body -
where you are firm and can not be softened.

Even as my hands pass through
into the empty space where you once were

I love you the way I loved fairytales and princes,
as a child when my father first began to notice me -

At first - I resisted you as all abandoned strays
do a new home for at least six months.

It had been the same with my father -
from hot intensity to cool indifference.

Days together would be followed
By months apart – I thought

He made me fully human – as an adult
I learned he made me incomplete.