Two Poems

Matt Damsker

The Moment of Beautiful Gestures

It was an absurd place:
Much energy devoted to those
Phony Cartes d’Ambassadeur.
And we watched them walking,
Heavy-heeled, stilleto-souled,
Toward the sea of mixed green.
Many paid in Grecian coin,
Monkey-headed; and the mockery
Of shop windows,
The hired help in snakeskin,
The crab mousse confectioners,
Though some conspired honestly
To buff the tiles clean.
Too much sun, too much tinted glass,
So much jaundice
In the off-lobby casino 
Where we snacked.
And the marbled vanities
Threw off the scent
Of those divi-divi birds,
The ones we’d wake to.
The awnings, too, were slow to retract,
Though you’d only push a button.
And the plantings wanted water
On the poured-concrete patios,
While the faintest giggle drifting over
From the yachts seemed
Moist with overnight tears.
Did we hear murmurs just before
The elevator doors were drawn?
I don’t know. You can say.

When the time came, of course,
The planes were delayed.
The Marquise inquired; fruit baskets appeared.
There were hours to note how perfectly
The weather held its breath.
We folded our newspapers flat.
And that was that.
The moment of beautiful gestures
Had passed, though I kept longing
For the wherewithal.
The party of six, the elderly ladies at lunch,
Would have to go forward;
There was no picking up their tab.
I saw them filch a bit of Sevres,
Saw their purses swallow up
A fish knife, a crystal ashtray.
I was reminded of Mama.

Later, floating upward, toward Stavanger,
We lived on finger food, took tea;
Watched them haunt the deck,
Club-footed, oath-bound;
Listened for the lecture bell;
Leaned in to hear the broking experts.
They advised short-terms.
We scribbled notes, with no intention.
Our stomachs rumbled.
And we passed through the narrowing fjord,
Craning necks at Preikestolen,
The table of rock like an altar or butcher block,
The way thinning like hair,
The ship slow as a breaker.
Our mission: To dislodge the Aortic ice,
The tissue of ten thousand days,
And carry on toward the glaring white
To a final reflection
Here, at the mirror of magnetic poles,
And home to the single truth
That I am the man you made.

		PhiladelphiaSan Francisco

Easy Street

Hearing the cuckoo,
Even in Kyoto
I long for Kyoto.

Matsuo Basho

I.
In the world we loved
The drapes were thick to block
The light from Strand and Thirty-Third
Until the ash vendor’s voice
Would claim the yellow air.
Awake, I’d poke a pile of dead letters
To which we had oversubscribed:
The field report from Sans Souci;
The Coonawarra tip sheet;
The short-form questionnaire from Seagate Mews
(Would we be bringing pets?
How many head of cattle?
Is your service-for-twelve yet intact?)

In the world we loved
We’d answer every inquiry
With a proper question: Who wants to know?
And you’d let slip your intimations:
The dahlias, fading, mimicking healthy cactus;
The oak veneer had traded up to gator hide;
The cantaloupe and nectarine now thinned to bluing silk.

The passage to our true frontier was narrow, after all,
Guarded by those tenement nags who nattered on
Above the peasant looms, the loose charity of
Free advice, to be forgot
As cranky sentiments are often canned:
“Don’t whisper to each other in
Mixed company! So impolite!”
Yet you and I took comfort
In a secret nod or two, a shared dereliction
Of beauty, as when, awakened early by
The cat mewling in an outer room,
We turned to one another’s tangled hair,
Staled breath and slick of night-sweat,
To lock tight in a morning’s bedded breakfast.
How long (ash vendor’s voice) before
Slick and stale repel on principle?
Or is it just fatigue that sets in, everywhere,
Like sand we shake from shoes and dampened cuffs?

In the world we loved,
The bay was lazuli blue,
Warm-swallowing as the inside of your mouth.
We channeled impulse and rum punch,
Coconut and cocktail napkin logos,
Ball gown straps designed to slip from shoulders,
Into the passing lanes of perfect time.
For the seasons move as waltzing partners, so
But metaphor unfastens with the leaves
That, falling, make of Fall a simple thing,
More clarified, less painted than we know.

(Still . . .
Is this the beach where winter edges through
To capture grain by grain the failing land?
Or do we tango on the higher ground
With blood and body binding me to you?)

II.
In the world we made
The clock and calendar, collecting rain,
Were sprung and worn away as elder teeth,
The flatware and the baby strollers salted up.
Who knows, we asked ourselves.
The canyon wind carved inches with each gust
And you could see the contours alter
In an indigo unlike the street lamp’s gleam.
We’d left behind the camouflage,
The pink eviction notices,
The unmet expectations each time
The house lights dimmed (Who makes this stuff?).
We found a four-and-three on Easy Street
With ideal views of tidal basin, water tower, St. Jude’s,
The perfect spot to monitor the complications
Posed by the late and listless, the off-duty,
The chronic world-promisers
Best to keep them close, so invitations flowed:
How is Thursday night for cake and coffee?
Better yet, a Wednesday morning audit with the
Volunteer Brigade? They’ll check the valves,
Assess the risk of immolation (You don’t smoke? Oh.)
And grant broad dispensation should the wiring
Prove rodent-gnawed. For no one likes
To own up to those uncaulked gaps,
The worn-through spots inviting night
To usher in a vole or two,
Or something scarier, like centipedes or silence.

In the world we made
I took the air most days at dusk,
Inspecting those corners where rust arrests,
The woodpile dreading its winter,
The birdhouse vacancies and acorn hope
Of azure coast, of gold coast, of delta
Draining down to Blossom Swamp.
We were restless in the car, restless on the launch,
Restless with the plate-spinning sun at Key West,
Unsettled as the mercury dared ever higher
And there was nowhere to go but inside.
Come inside,  you said. Were we overheard?
Who was leaning toward our bistro table
When we bent to whisper through our wine?
I believe in you, over and over:
Everyone was droning it, cicada-like.
But it was too late, too late for insect rock ’n’ roll,
Too late for crème de cacao they pawned off
As rocket fuel, too late for karaoke hymns
Or mercy dancing, too late the bouncer’s glare.
Inside, come inside, there is real music here,
Old albums by the nightstand, string arrangements too,
Violas scored to help you stay in love.

III.
In the world to come
The cypress and the olive branch
Are not standing in for anything
They whisper only of the wind
No more high-flown bouquets
Just a wooden rosary
A carved bench worn from worship
And the strum and scratch 
Of wired steel
Stretched and fretted
With no filigree
A voice above
The wedded voices
Hear me Father
Hear us simply
As the sparrows praise
Who will love a little sparrow
Who will wander for a sparrow’s sake
Along the unmarked path
We have not walked before
We have not been
Where the leaves are mounded
We have not been
In hollows where no echo sounded
We have found a place
In the water’s eye
Beside the sea-claimed footprints
In the scan of the lighthouse
Briefly noted
But allied with grace all the same
We lay the foundation
And redirect the mail from Easy Street
To heaven’s new address
Beneath your maiden name.