ASHLEY CROUT

Smoke Sauna

We could never be ordinary, you used 

to say. We were unprecedented, 
 
but every highway-side hotel smelled 
the same – lilac and urine, stale sex.
 
And what did it matter?
 
We were always locked in the grimly
identical bathrooms as if we were worth
searching out, as if hiding made us safe.
 
We filled those tiled toilet boxes
with smoke, left the hot water running
to steam the drug into us deeper than air. 
 
We called this careful 
though most of the time I went blind 
until morning. You split 
 
your fogged head on the sink.

The night was paid for until the sun
came in and tried to show us something.
 
I tell you it is never quiet in the mind.
 
Life is loud and won’t drown out. 
And some morning it will be over 
 
whether or not you’re done.

Ashley Crout was born in Charleston, SC, and graduated from Bard College and the MFA program at Hunter College. She is the recipient of a poetry grant from The Astraea Foundation and has received awards from The Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation. Her work has been published in Sojourner, Ponder Review, Atticus Review and Dodging the Rain, among others. She lives in Greenville, SC, with her hound, Stella.