Hotels Like Houses
The Good Loser
I have portrayed temptation as amusing.
Now he can either waver or abstain.
His is a superior kind of losing
And mine is an inferior brand of gain.
His sacrifice, his self-imposed restriction
Will get through this controversy intact
For his is a superior kind of fiction
And mine is an inferior brand of fact.
I have displayed my most attractive feature
And he his least, yet still the match seems odd
For I am a superior kind of creature
And he is an inferior brand of god
And if he cuts me off without a warning
His is the book from which I’ll take a leaf
For his is a superior kind of mourning
And ours a most inferior brand of grief.
Hotels Like Houses
She is the one who takes a shine
to ceilings and to floors,
whose eye finds room for every line
scratched on the wardrobe doors.
She thinks in terms of thick red rope
around the bed, a plaque
above the hardened bathroom soap.
He’s always first to pack.
If their affair has awkward spells,
what’s bound to cause the rows is
that he treats houses like hotels
and she, hotels like houses.