(London)
Each day, I take the lift from the sublet down to the ground floor.
Out on the street, I pass the shop that sells the beds,
the sumptuous beds, made up each morning anew, afresh,
by smiling clerks who please their own moods,
doing the beds up one day in flaming sunrise and sunset tones,
and the next, in shades of white on white, with satin piping,
pillowcases threaded with ribbons and bows,
like a bride’s too-delicate underclothes.
And yet, nobody sleeps in the beds, makes love in the beds.
They wait, like a young girl with too much imagination,
to be taken away for a weekend in the country,
to a great house where stylish lovers flirt and scheme
in preliminary maneuvering, but know, in the end,
what beds are for. Know, no matter what they do,
all will be plumped and tucked and smoothed,
all made as it was, by knowing maids the morning after.
The anxious clerks stare out at the soiled street,
the racing cars and taxis, the passers-by, waiting for money
to stop, walk in the door, and ask to buy a bed.
There are circles under their eyes,
as if they’ve been sleeping badly.
Beds must make way for other beds,
pillows for other pillows, new sheets, new lives!
The seconds tick on the big clock
a block from the bed shop, the minute hand
moves with a jerk, and suddenly whole hours have flown, the day vanishes,
pulled by an unseen hand through a small hole in the sky
somewhere in the darkening East End.
Night falls so quickly on this street of Dream Merchandise!
Now all of us reverse ourselves and change direction
to come home to well-intentioned stews with husbands and wives,
yesterday’s leftovers made to stretch so economically,
my heels on the sidewalk clicking in silver tones,
like the small change in my pocket falling end over end over end,
all that remains of a day’s hard buying.
Already the new moon is backlighting the city’s towers and spires,
illuminating shadowy shop windows up and down Fulham Road.
It drapes itself casually across the beds,
like the misplaced towel or bathrobe
of a woman who has just stepped out for the evening,
wearing new evening clothes, made up so carefully
she can’t be recognized, who secretly knows
she will not be coming back until morning
to sleep, if she sleeps then,
in the perfect bed of her own making.