The Roma Hotel

The plump old ladies with rouged cheeks and rolled
up stockings sat on the balcony with their husbands,
who chatted about 9th Street in Philly and argued
whether Pat's Steaks were better than Geno's.

We ate our meals in the room with pistachio walls
that were decorated with seascape oil paintings
whose grainy brush strokes made them appear older
than most of the guests. Only a handful of guests

were kids like us, all of them as docile and obedient
as dogs anxious to please their owners. We swapped
addresses and phone numbers with them but never
wrote or called, the buzz of summer wearing off by

the first week of school. Our family had a party in
the room the night before check-out, splurging on
pretzels and wine (soda for you and me). The white
curtains were unraveling at the edges like beautiful

hair plagued with split ends after years of neglect.
The imprints on the maroon carpet reminded me of
dough that had been kneaded too much but with the
utmost respect. We clinked our glasses and toasted

each other in Italian. I adopted sand crabs as vacation
pets and brought them back to the room that night in
plastic cups. I cried when I tossed their lifeless bodies
back into the ocean the following morning.