An Explanation of Doily

To Adam Z You asked me last summer: “What is a doily?” Sometimes, at lunch, I walk on the beach. Today I was coatless. A storm cloud threatened, Dark as a spaceship. Should it pour, A sister ship down in the water Would throw up grappling nets to the surface, Rain rise to soak me. Behind a sandbank, Waves touched the shore, no more than a shimmer. Less rare than its cousin, the antimacassar, A doily’s placed between sweet thing and china. Both survive where vicars arrive For tea, are given thin cup and saucer Instead of a mug. If your cake’s so rich That it’s leaking syrup, you’ll need a doily. Held up, its paper’s the filigree Of snowflake, or fingers looked through in fear. The shower holds off. My shoe’s a doily. Without it, where would I be on these shells That crunch underfoot, like contact lenses, As I gingerly walk, on my mermaid way Back to my husband in his human dwelling? Someone is pulling a blue toy trawler Along the horizon to port, so smoothly It looks realistic. Sea’s partly doily. Surfers ride its lace to their downfall, After all, we’re nothing but froth. Like a carpet salesman, the indolent tide Flops a wave over, showing samples: “Madam, This one is durable, has a fringe.” Under Its breath the sea sighs, “Has it come To this? Must everything always end in ... doily?” It must. Broad afternoon. The rain-cloud barges Have passed and here’s a cumulonimbus parade Of imperial busts, the Roman rulers In historical order which, I think, would please you. Their vapor curls and noble foreheads Are lit up in lilac because they’re invading The west. Next come the philosophers and, last of all, The poets. Pulleys draw them delicately on. Here comes Lucretius, then Ovid, then Horace In lines, saying relentlessly, “Doily,” “Doily,” Till stars take over and do the same.