Bus ticket stub stuck in my coat seam
Motel sign flickers sodium sick green
Envelope swells in my jeans pocket
Blue ink blooms where the rain won't stop it
Wet ink motel parking lot glow
Paper dissolves in the sodium flow
Words I wrote you drown in the gutter
Shutter clicks but I cannot utter
Room key plastic cold against my palm
Fluorescent buzz hums a dying psalm
Film canister rattles in my backpack
Thirty-six frames of a fading map
Wet ink motel parking lot glow
Paper dissolves in the sodium flow
Words I wrote you drown in the gutter
Shutter clicks but I cannot utter
Puddle reflects the cracked vinyl siding
Headlights sweep past where I'm standing hiding
Letter surrenders to the storm drain mouth
My thumb presses the winder south
Wet ink motel parking lot glow
Paper dissolves in the sodium flow
Words I wrote you drown in the gutter
Shutter clicks but I cannot utter
Developer fluid stains my fingertips
Chemical sweet where the negative slips
Your face emerges in the trays red light
But the letter's gone to the sewer night
No return address no stamp no name
Just the sound of the shutter and rain
No return address no stamp no name
Just the click and the cold and the rain
Dawn cracks pale over the brutalist block
Film dries clipped on a rusted wire lock
Envelope empty just pulp and fiber
One frame left of us two together
Wet ink motel parking lot glow
Paper dissolves in the sodium flow
Words I wrote you drown in the gutter
Shutter clicks but I cannot utter
Wet ink motel where the message dies
Click the shutter watch the memory rise
Click shutter dark
Rain hits the hood
Negative dries
