hotel love

Hotel love

I arrived at the uploaded village in the north, which had once been?

a working hamlet, until famous people bought property there.

More people followed, as did estate agents the parish became?

an in-place with posh cafes and restaurants with French names

where the original inhabitants could not afford to live in what was?

left was a postcard idyll and a fake Tudor.

As I was booking in when my ex-girlfriend burst in full of eager talk

she was going to a restaurant where a well know singer would

appear and do as singers do sing.

In the right light and clever make-up, she looked about 37

it happened; I knew she was 54 but was not going to tell.

A young man she called darling carried her leather suitcase.

I was here to visit my daughter, her two noisy children and

her husband, who spoke of investment and paying taxes.

I ate wiener schnitzel, drank a bottle of wine, and served?

by a woman dressed in a sexed-up folkloric costume

went to bed; my ex-girlfriend had a room next to mine

?made a clamour when she arrived with her young man,?

but after a while, things simmered down.

In the morning, when she came down for breakfast, she?

as alone, not for her to let a lover see her in the morn

I called her name and asked her to sit with me and drank

coffee, her hands trembled, needed a drink but?

I got her to eat a croissant.

Up in my room, drink in hands, she had a moment

of clarity, my life is a mess, she said it is your fault

for getting old and bald; slept in my bed for hours

getting up, going to her room to put on her young face.

I didn’t get to see my daughter and her children

had to drive my exes home before she got into

more trouble.