The Bronte Manor is for the timid possum of this world.
Not the classic women its name invokes,
A hotel for those who play dead.
Men cast out from homes or never reeled into them, in the first place.
At night, the marquee flashes  r nt  Ma o  

Empty beer bottles collect outside the front door,
A crystal chandelier lays heavy on the carpet of the foyer.
The concierge long ago replaced by a night-keeper,  
Who makes his living crossing out the days of men and
Keeping his blinders on to miss the man slumped over

On a couch of cotton candy purple, once the color of royalty.
With its back turned towards the plate glass window,
Cracked,
Split,
Covered in spit.

A lanky old man slinks sidelong through the crooked doorframe,
eyes heavy, unfocused.
He misses the wraith of his nameless neighbor, shadow by.
A body that has nested in the room next to his
for three thread-bare years.

They rent by the week,
but monthly at a discount, when they have it.
The silence lingers
broken only by the rattling of solitary doorknobs
and dead-bolts.