Iron and Almost Sweet

Three in the morning, a hotel room

in a city that knows me

as a reservation number.

I ran the tap, drank from

the paper-wrapped cup—the kind

with the crinkled top, like a gift

nobody wrapped with care—

and the water tasted like iron

and something almost sweet.

Not bad. Just not mine.

The way a word sounds different

when someone else's accent

lands on it.

I stood in the fluorescent light

of a beige bathroom, looking like someone

who'd been asked to leave a country

and was trying to be reasonable about it.

Three nights left.

The tap still running.