Demimonde (poem)

 

 

 

Demimonde

 

Starting fresh a heart for bold endeavor

The probing intellect makes like an inspector

For as the renovators have the door ajar

The walls pulled down floes of plaster

Pushed by traversing traffic to shore

Up against sawbucks chunks of gear

Where cords lie plugged together

The tiles hexagonal shorn flakes of snow

Unpointed where the tips would grow

Waxed yellow white and black scuffed charcoal

The windows are good, the quantity of those

And the lovely waving glass and the framing in its fanciness

Deco-esque

The fanlights stained

And smoke outside of a second exit

No one to order off the pioneer

Curious he and she make for the stairs

The chandelier at the broad first landing

And that far larger over the lobby

Someone has hung a blue tape plastic

Garlanded spanning drops of prism

But what do they want, our heroes

 

They want to know

Where the notorious crime took place

Does the hallway carpet confess it

Have they razored that bad patch out

Will it fall like the plummeting addict

Said to have cast the fatal glance

Fetched on the railing and bounced like a gymnast

Somersaulting

She didn’t shriek

Needed a frozen moment perhaps

A moment of assimilation

Another tick to ask herself

What will I do

Is there hope at all

And just when below the baggage cart rolled

And the gun still in her hand went spinning

He was an infamous boulevardier

She was never identified

 

 

 

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Demimonde

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2019, Stephanie Foster)