The Visit of the Professor of Aesthetics

To see you standing in the sagging bookstore door

So filled me with chagrin that suddenly you seemed as

Pink and white to me as newborn, hairless mouse. For

I had hoped to delight you at home. Be a furl

Of faint perfume and Vienna’s cord like lace,

To shine my piano till a shimmer of mother-of-pearl

Embraced it. To pleasantly surprise you with the grace

That transcends my imitation and much worn

“Louis XV” couch. To display my cathedrals and ballets.

To plunge you into Africa through my nude

Zulu Prince, my carvings from Benin, forlorn

Treasures garnered by much sacrifice of food.

I had hoped to delight you, for more

Rare than the seven-year bloom of my

Chinese spiderweb fern is a mind like yours

That concedes my fetish for this substance

Of your trade. And I had planned to prove

Your views of me correct at even every chance

Encounter. But you surprised me. And the store which

Had shown promise until you came, arose

Like a child gone wild when company comes or a witch

At Hallowe’en. The floor, just swept and mopped

Was persuaded by the northlight to deny it.

The muddy rag floor rugs hunched and flopped

Away from the tears in the linoleum that I wanted

Then to hide. The drapes that I had pleated

In clear orchid and peach feverishly flaunted

Their greasiest folds like a banner.

The books who had been my friends, retreated—

Became as shy as the proverbial poet in manner

And hid their better selves. All glow had been deleted

By the dirt. And I felt that you whose god is grace

Could find no semblance of it here. And unaware

That you were scrubbing, you scrubbed your hands.

Wrung and scrubbed your long white fingers. Scrubbed

Then as you smiled and I lowered my eyes from despair.

Notes:

From To Flower (Hemphill Press First Edition, 1963).

This work is part of the portfolio “‘These Blazing Forms’: The Life and Work of Margaret Danner” from the March 2022 issue.

Source: Poetry (March 2022)