London Motel by Christina Kallery

Now that my parents are forever
spared from shame, I can tell
you where I went with my high
school love. How I sunk low
in a Ford Escort seat sprayed
with the electric blue tulle of my JC-
Penney prom dress, while he fetched
a key from the mulleted clerk.

That as the blade turned in the lock,
its red keychain swayed like a stripper’s
earring, cursive script flashing London
despite being 3,000 miles away
on Dix-Toledo Road between The Donut
Kastle and Royal Cement.

I can tell you that we had only
a shadowy grasp of the sorts
who might be holed up a wall away.
And that it was the kind of place
with a ceiling mirror: enormous
eye looming as we climbed—
still clothed, beneath the flame-
retardant bedspread pocked
with cigarette burns and industrial
bleached sheets. What I won’t say
is what our shy and tremulous
bodies did that night before we lay
together in the flicker of a grainy
TV screen, watching as the world
took shape in a place we’d never been.



Christina Kallery is the author of Adult Night at Skate World, now in its 2nd edition from Dzanc Books. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, ONE ART, Rust + Moth, and other publications, and has been included in several anthologies, including Best of the Web and Respect: The Poetry of Detroit Music. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.