Sixties Hotel (Poetry)

I remember so well
that backstreet hotel
with its vacancy sign curling grey
in a cold single room
full of afternoon gloom
you said you were going away

and the moment stood still
locked inside me until
I read of your death in the news
but there’s none I could tell
for I loved you too well
while they raked through your closet for clues.

The hotel’s still there
off of Devonshire square
discreet in a dim cul de sac
I dream of that bed
and the last words you said
imagine you’d taken them back...

But no one guessed who
room nineteen was let to
or fitted a face to a name
now it’s forty years on
and the passion has gone
and our crime died along with your fame.