An Explanation of Doily

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.