week 10 edited poem

 Fourth Draft after class comments


In the SoHo lobby 

White calla-lilies, perfectly maligned by the china
spit-polished, and a champagne fountain left in the closet.
The groom enters thinking of eggs and burnt coffee
and that night chill enough to frost blood born windows

or freeze a Bangkok Duck outside the Holy Basil.

Ten years ago, and we’re right back in that lobby,
corn-fed city dwellers with only one bag of bagels,
each warm, good-fruitful, and koshered with love.
humane, brandy-legged adolescence. What children,
with our cast-irons bit in two, starring, as one’s eye widens.

Viewing a carved marble studio wrought with gold lace,
we huddled in green corners like freshman. Afraid of
the scabs or moles and what appeared to be lost wealth.
And at the first acquired taste of scotch or, worse, Milwaukee,

We hailed taxi’s and rushed from the shrieking emblems
of  Hell's Hundred Acers and Frank Stella.

Reach the brown-step, reach the damned step.
Was I  (a normal) supposed to fear that swelling scene?
Or was I immune to that imagined fear, like metro-phobia
or lower east Manhattan zoning ordinances?

Distance, we know, is grand. Downstairs in the lobby,
two people are about to be, for life. She’s happily going over
her final Fates; he’s busily reciting the pledge
to himself never to forget how I walked around that lobby,
wondering why that particular texture, that specific slant of sun
lit a subject through shattered blinds. Maybe not shattered,
I got the name wrong, maybe shared, and, so, sleeping,
came many, many more. And these (the normals), forever changed.

In the SoHo lobby

White calla-lilies, perfectly maligned by the china
spit-polished, and a champagne fountain left unplugged.
The groom enters thinking of eggs and burnt coffee
and a night chill enough to frost blood shot windows

or freeze a Bangkok Duck outside the Holy Basil.

Ten years ago, and we’re right back in that lobby,
corn-fed city dwellers with only one bag of bagels,
each warm, good-fruitful, and koshered with love,
humane, brandy-legged adolescence, what children
with our cast iron bit in two, starring, as one’s eye widens.

In a carved marble studio wrought with gold lace,
we huddled in green corners like freshman.
And at the first taste of scotch or, worse, Milwaukee,

we hailed taxi’s and rushed from the shrieking emblems
of Hell's Hundred Acers and Frank Stella.

Reach the brown-step, reach the damned step.
Am I supposed to fear? And what? Not perfect,
consider it as a kind of fear, like metro-phobia
or lower east Manhattan zoning ordinances.

Distance, we know, is grand. Downstairs in the lobby,
two people are about to be, for life. She’s happily going over
her final Fates; he’s busily reciting the pledge
to himself never to forget how I walked around that lobby,
wondering why that particular texture , that specific slant of sun
through the shattered blinds. Maybe not shattered.
I got the name wrong and, so, sleeping, came many,
many more. And these forever.