Midwest Motel

by Navida Stein


The cicadas’ drone is bursting through the dirty window of the Best Western motel.
My ninety-year-old mother sleeps on top of the striped bedspread, her mouth slack,
her snoring adds a scratch melody to the cicadas’ song.
We are halfway to the famous clinic
the only place she will deign to receive medical help.
I drive and she complains.
I am back in the Midwest, a place I’d sworn never to return
but everyone else has abdicated their responsibility
tired of the jabbing and pricking that springs from our mother’s mouth.
She recites a litany of our failures, comparing us to the brilliant children of her friends.
They own a house in France. They all vacation together.
My mother gives a huge snort. I will never be able to sleep listening to this.
The full moon, pounding out of the open sky sparks an idea for a late-night swim
to let moonlight enter my floating body
unravel the kinks from driving all day.
I call down to the front desk to ask how late the pool is open.
The answer, the pool is cracked and closed for repairs.
There will be no soothing tonight, no gentle placebo
and I have no Valium.


* * * * *

Navida Stein is a New York based storyteller, actress, writer and musician. She writes plays, stories and poetry as well as adapting literature for the stage. For an online arts magazine she reviews theater, opera and cabaret. As an actress, Navida’s worked Off-Broadway and regionally doing new plays, musicals and Shakespeare. Her storytelling/solo performances include both traditional tales and personal stories. She lives in a tiny Hell’s Kitchen studio with her husband, a piano, a violin, and too many books. Recently, she had a poem published in The Pangolin Review. She believes in being perpetually curious.