checking out

one night
at the holiday
inn, ten years
or so ago, i checked
in for a few
days in an
attempt to smooth
out a marriage
that was already
done. i sat on
the edge of a hard
bed that smelled
like smoke
and rotted cabbage,
and listened to
a man through
the thin papered
walls coughing. his
television was still
on at two a.m.
i never went to
sleep. i thought
about my son who
slept alone
in his room that
night without his
father in the house.
i laid down
and listened
to the coughing,
to the bland voices
of the tv, and
reasoned that this
is what hell must
be like. the next
day i got a lawyer
and found out that
hell has many levels,
more than i imagined.