ManicDDaily

Place Setting (Napkin, Knife, Butler)

His hands a monument in themselves,
the fingers Trafalgar columns, tensile
dolmens, though not monumenting beauty
so much as making it. There was nothing
not worth doing, if done well.
A deep well was the
laundry sink, one whose whitewash
rusted blood-blue about the drain, though
he used shallower basins for
the napkins, a glisten
of salt, and, too, a secret substance (champagne) for
the stubborner stains, a fluid he also applied to
shoes aside the polishes, – cordovan, ebony,
jet– words rolling
off the tongue like pitches surmounted–those napkins,
once de-stained, folded,
sculpted, pressed, an origami of named magnificence–such
decadence to sit on a sodding lap–but he didn’t really
care for that part, it was
the spectacle. the gleam
and flow upon
the board–the mitre: linen trained to pray; the
mortarboard: napkin squared
upon napkin frame; the lotus, petals starched; fashioned
one by one upon
an ironing board anvil, felted white
above chintz cover, a flowery green/peach that might have graced
the wallpaper of a boarding house hyphenated on sea; his silver
knife blades mirrored
your nose sniffing the acrid de-tarnisher that blackened flesh and possibly
someone else’s soul–not, seemingly, his–the ink of the Magna Carta still
fluid in his veins, and beating
Hitler.  What he craved was
excellence and, yes,
its particular acknowledgement,
(which his linen marvels drew)
raised in a London orphanage,
where kerchiefs looped necks, and
corners tucked, and praise, perhaps, was
doled out, if at all, like biscuits at tea, sparingly. The evening pumps
he shone upon the enameled washing machine
and proudly showed off (as worn
by hand)–the crafting
of beauty always something
of which to be proud–glinted
like Andromeda in opera’s
velvet night;  the water glasses
sparkled too, every single bit
as much as the wine.

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The above draft poem  (revised this AM again) was written for the wonderful prompt by Victoria C. Slotto for dVerse Poets Pub to write about “place/setting.”   (Yes, I know; I’m not sure this is what Victoria meant.)  It is based upon Leslie Lowndes, who made a living as a chauffeur/butler, was originally a Cockney from London, and also one of the most wonderfully kind and talented persons I’ve ever known.

The picture is of a light sculpture by Jason Martin, which, when lit up (in a not very good photo)  looks something like this: