current ::

ceraolo
gage
leon
richardson
steigerwald
walker
kontar

jo steigerwald

Hotel Transmogrify

I dream she walks down the hallway in a gray velvet suit.

The backs of her knees push against the skirt’s hem. 

Swish-pull.  Swish-pull.

Hair twisted up like a cruller; stockings with reinforced heels.

She holds her shoes in one hand and

pads down the hall,

looking right and left

at brass numbers on lavender doors.

It smells like mothballs and candle wax;

like church. Then the lights lower.

The hallway shrinks.

And she disappears into the baseboard.


Behind My Eyes, Pupils Dilated

I live in one room.

The bed is soft with the impressions of sleepers gone before

 and covered with a white chenille bedspread

whose fringes dip down in the middle to fondle the floor.

I stretch long and lanky with a shock of hair falling

eternally, perpetually over my forehead

to be ever ever brushed aside with nicotine-stained fingers;

glass ashtray on the windowsill.

I watch the window, the glass, the infinite grid of screen

through which the world is parsed in perfect squares

in perfect rows that march onward to the wooden window frame.

I only exhale unfiltered smoke.

My overcoat hangs like a dancer from my shoulders

and waltzes through my long long stride,

its pockets lined in cotton velveteen and worn at the edges

from holding tokens, matches, a marble, a pen.

I rinse my shirts in the sink in my room.

Stack my books on the floor by the wall.

Rest my head on the inside of my forearm on the pillow.

Watch the ceiling whereon is an Argentine crack.