Archive > Vol. X no. Z

George Szirtes

In Praise of Hotels

Hotels I have known, you galere of intimates, custodians of the spirit, all hail! White nights in hired rooms with air-conditioning and water pulsing in showers, welcome! Breakfasts in dining rooms, poached eggs and full English, croissants, tiny capsules of jam, bonjour! Delight of armchaired halls, meeting rooms, conference rooms, gyms, swimming pools, corridors, and stairs!

To find ourselves the ghosts we have become in you, in your lobbies and working lifts is joy. The rooms of the spirit are yours and various yet assuringly similar each time. I wake at dead of night to offer you my thanks from the great hearts of great cities and towns, aware of exhaustion but better for your beds, for your decor and for your free wifi. Nothing compares to you, hotels of my late years. Except other hotels of course, with space for dreams and forgetting, though I can’t remember each of you by name, not even my own.