Tuesday Nights, Room 28 of the Royal Motel on Little Santa Monica

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

John Colton likes to call me sweet girl.

He likes to call me baby cakes.

He likes to call me late at night,

after his wife’s asleep.

Tuesday nights at the Royal Motel

I vamp for him in the steamed-up bathroom.

He likes to watch me shave

my legs in the tub.

He likes to shave my bush

into a valentine.

He likes to watch me

pinch my nipples till his dick gets hard,

then push my pudenda

into his wet smile.

Tuesday nights at the Royal Motel

John Colton says it’s better with me on top.

I ride him slo-mo, adagio.

First gear.

I could be anyone.

A Maserati, a long-lost symphony,

a one-time spritz at the fragrance counter

at Sak’s Fifth Avenue.

He could be my father.

Tuesday nights at the Royal Motel

John Colton lights my Marlboro

after we fuck.

We watch the match burn down

to his fingertips.

I’m afraid to blow it out.

Tuesday nights at the Royal Motel

he holds me like I matter.

It’s just sex, he sighs.

He brushes the hair from my face,

plants a kiss on my forehead.

You’re my first, I whisper,

just to fuck with him.

Tuesday night at the Royal Motel

when John Colton doesn’t show

I wait by the side of the bed.

In the morning, the voice mail.

The fire. The accidental burning.

I burn for you, sweet girl, he said.

* * * * *

"Tuesday Nights, Room 28 of the Royal Motel on Little Santa Monica" was first published in Little Raven 4, Australia (2016).

L.A. poet Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Verse Daily, Plume, The 

American Journal of Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Diode, Nashville Review, Wide Awake, Poets of Los 

Angeles, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She’s the author of 5 poetry collections; How I 

Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (2015), Enter 

Here (2017), Junkie Wife (2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (2019). EROTIC, New & Selected, 

publishes in 2020 from New York Quarterly. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net 

nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com