The Darkening Trapeze by Larry Levis

Author:Larry Levis [Levis, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Poetry, Poems, Fiction, United States
ISBN: 9781555977276
Google: xfYwCwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1555977278
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2016-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

The fire in the hotel had begun as nothing more

Than the prank of a child who’d gotten high, after school,

By inhaling gasoline fumes in a vacant lot, & who then rode,

With a gas can carried in a paper bag, the elevator to

The Starlight Terrace restaurant where he looked beyond

Frayed tablecloths & over the entire city before a waiter

Picked him up by his long hair & shoved him into an open

Elevator in which falling solitude the boy

Splashed gasoline all over the fake wood paneling & plaid

Carpet, stepped out of it two floors later, & then, with that

Quick & graceful turning gesture from which the body makes

The thoughtless beauty of a hook shot from mid-court, tossed

A match inside before the door could close. And though it took

The fire crew less than an hour to clear two floors & put the last

Sparks out, I kept thinking of the elevator descending to some

Small family probably in from the sticks, probably on their way to visit

A dying aunt or sister, who, after blowing all their savings to stay

In a room decorated with the overcast melancholy of a cheap

Utrillo print, waited there in the fatigued aftertaste

Failure left them with, as if to think it over, in that moment

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