Making Love to My Toes by Carla Sameth

         ​Esko Kurvinen CC



Making Love to My Toes

Girl glares sullen for a moment, thinks: this shit job, this hotel, these people make
so much noise about nothin’ and I bet no tip gonna be left

in my room tomorrow. Slam bang outta here like they own
the right to vacation and I just want to see Jesse before she goes home

to her mom’s who thinks we don't have no reason to be seeing each other.
But I see her ass bent over real firm and her tits spilling out of that funky

hotel uniform. Looking real fine. Yeah we’re maids, but we made, real good love
in that big suite last week. Just cleaned the sheets that’s all and hell we deserve

some fun after picking up shit yeah shit there’s a shit
on the floor in that other room.  I don't know why some people

think staying away means being the biggest pigs sloshing mud about these
rooms. People bring sadness, breaking glasses, yelling thunder, vomiting oaths,

don’t even shut the door, they so mad. And I know my Jesse and I won’t
be doing that never. Her lips make thighs tremble, her sighs tell my heart

I can finally rest. Quiet hushful. No bad smells. No mean manager slinging threats
write me up for five minute late when I tuck in my little boy goodbye, no tears

when I see you mi Nena!  Mi amor. You must know te adoro, my Jessita, press my
hand to your heart; can’t you hear the beats? Your mom mustn’t send you away

to Damn Palmdale, Lawndale, “some-dale” California. Only way you going there,
we go together but why when our icy turquoise lake is where I bath you. It’s fine, our

work at the Mountaineer Lodge here in Lake Louise. They’re not all
creeps. Some leave a tip, they dump their dumps in the toilet, garbage

in the basket. And girl? Girl! I love you so much, I’d follow you anywhere picking up
anyone’s shit. Just kiss me now but don’t you vanish on me. Because one day

here in this hoary hotel, without you, would asphyxiate me. I’m so tired, my feet
wouldn’t take me anywhere without your handsome hands making love to my toes.

​


Carla Sameth is a writer living in Pasadena. Her debut memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, is forthcoming July 2019. Her work on blended/unblended, queer, biracial and single parenting appears in a variety of literary journals and anthologies including: Collateral Journal, The Nervous Breakdown, Brevity Blog, Brain, Child & Brain Teen Magazine, Narratively, Longreads, Mutha Magazine, Full Grown People, Angels Flight Literary West, Tikkun, Entropy, Pasadena Weekly, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and La Bloga. She writes about addiction, trauma and resilience with a sense of humor and connection to her readers. Carla was selected as a fall 2016 PEN In The Community Teaching Artist and has taught creative writing to incarcerated youth through WriteGirl.  She teaches at the Los Angeles Writing Project (LAWP) at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) and with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU).  She is a member of the Pasadena Rose Poets who present “poetry within reach and in unexpected places.” Carla has an MFA in Creative Writing (Latin America) from Queens University. Previously she “brought home the oatmeal” as a single mom, running her PR firm, iMinds PR.