– Hotel Room, 1931, Edward Hopper

The luggage is packed for
comings or leavings that blur
to silence. Only a dark square
of window near the room's
bright, fevered edge gives
hope against the will's deepest
appetite that settles onto the page,
two knees, and the unused bed –
a letter whose truth must dull
the body – its shoulders and
thin shadows, sagging toward
the fingers of disbelief.