Late at night we threw ice off the roof of Spokane’s historic Ridpath Hotel
where Elvis had once booked three floors for his drunken entourage
ordered windows painted black, loaded a room with his bodyguards’ guns
sent for lobster tails after midnight, sent back eggs to be cooked hard as rocks
where we rode the high-speed elevator, raced to ice machines on each floor—
giddy on adrenaline from several days of music festival performances
and evenings of practice on the white baby grand at the piano store—
where we pressed the Penthouse button for the intriguing, unlucky 13th level.
When the door slid open, we spied on the high rollers dancing in the club
found our way in the dark to the open-air roof, leaned over the railing
whooped and hollered when our ice missiles hit a car or bus
hoped people down below would wonder why there was hail in May
while our mothers in the hotel bar with drinks on the rocks
tried for an hour to forget they were responsible for us.
