At a Hotel in Bradford, PA By Jim Bourey

At the free breakfast she ate

a blueberry muffin. She nibbled

at it in small precious bites,

aware of herself,

making a show

of glistening lips,

white perfect teeth.

I saw her again later 

in a sad little tavern

one block down.

She leaned hard against

a man she didn’t know;

grasping with selfish purpose,

with forced desire, laughing loud,

eyes lit from within,

lips parted, drunk.

The next morning she reappeared

at the free hotel breakfast, 

disheveled, distraught 

and tired, unsure and confused.

She was tired of being

with all these strangers.

She was ready

to check out. 

Jim Bourey is an old poet who divides his year between the Adirondack Mountains and Dover, Delaware. His chapbook “Silence, Interrupted” was published in 2015 by the Broadkill River Press. His work has appeared in Mojave River Review, Paddock Review, Gargoyle and the Broadkill Review and other journals and anthologies. He was first runner up in the Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Competition in 2012 and 2016. He has served as an adjudicator for the Poetry Out Loud competition in Delaware. In his North Country months, he is active with the St. Lawrence Area Poets and has taken part in Art/Poetry projects in Saranac Lake.