Saturday

“Don’t you hear that cat yowl?  Someone’s shut her
In the closet.  For God’s sake let her out.”
On the lake, motorboats whine and putter.

Whine and putter, steered without a rudder,
The motorboats carry men thin and stout.
“Don’t you hear that cat yowl?  Someone’s shut her

In a cabinet.” 
          “How’d she,” you mutter,
“Get in that clutter, crying to get out?”
On the lake, motorboats whine and putter.

“Just eat your breakfast of toast and butter
Go find where that cat has got herself trapped.
Don’t you hear that cat yowl?  Someone’s shut her

In a room.”
         “You!  When you closed the shutter.”
“Well, you go see what she’s wailing about.”
On the lake, motorboats whine and putter.

Put the knife down, stop thinking you’ll cut her.
Remember you promised to mend the grout.
“Don’t you hear that cat yowl?  Someone’s shut her…”
Outside the motorboats whine and putter.

Published in Oops: A Poetry and Prose Anthology 2022

North Carolina's Mountains Shade to Blue

North Carolina’s mountains shade to blue
Beneath the pale clouds outside my window.
The nearby winter woods don’t share that hue.

Painters say, and I give artists their due,
That great distance and haze are what endow
Those far off mountains with a shade of blue.

 But I question how the grey trunks that slew
And creak beneath a sky threatening snow
March to blue mountains, yet don’t share their hue.

Does some hidden grief have something to do
With how great distance and haze should allow
Those Carolina mountains shade of blue?

Does some secret regret afflict and cool
The mountains, some concealed sorrow, tell how
Nearby woods might not share that distant hue?

Or was it some stupid act I should rue,
That explains the distance between us now,
And how memories of you fade to blue
When nothing we shared held that bitter hue.

Published in The Cataloochee Bridge 2022

Desiderium

 by David W. Plunkett

                 I first saw Lois reclining on a chase lounge, drawing smoke down the stem of an ancient clay sailor’s pipe as she stared out the window that formed the far wall of her hotel room.  She held the pipe’s stem scissored between white gloved fingers so near the bowl that I believed heat from the tobacco burning in it must have caused her some pain.  Far below her gaze the crowded beach met a languid azure ocean that rushed in and withdrew lapping at the sunbathers’ feet as they lay sprawled along the sand beneath a lavender sky.  On the horizon, salmon-colored clouds mounted to a darkening heaven.
                “Ma’am?”  She shifted, stretching one arched leg out while pulling the other up as she rolled toward me in a languid and fluid motion.  The gown, with its high collar bodice covering apple-round breast, drew together at her slim waist then cascaded in a luxury of cobalt blue taffeta and translucent silk to the floor.  Except for her head, she was concealed, chaste, but as she rolled toward me the long slit down her gown’s front fell open.  A thrill tingled down my back at the sight of her long and shapely legs.
                “Well?”  A cloud of smoke emerged with her one-word question and dissipated to reveal turquoise eyes set evenly above smooth olive cheeks.  Her wide angular face tapered to a heart-shaped kiss of full red lips beneath an aquiline nose that would be a flaw on any other woman.  She drew against the pipe stem before resting it on a side table.  Cocking her head, she sent a final cloud toward the ceiling and looked at me enigmatically like a cat might look at an uppity mouse who had interrupted an idyll contemplation of the world beyond its window seat.
                For a moment, the fact that she had spoken didn’t register.  I saw and heard nothing in the room but gazed at her transfixed.  The tray I was holding which bore a single calling card shifted reminding me that a Mr. Adams awaited her pleasure.  The word came out like a dream.  “Pleasure,” I said out loud before regaining my senses to stumble into the reason I had come.  “Mr. Adams awaits your pleasure.”  I presented the tray.
                She brought her legs around to sit on the side of the lounge.  Reaching out to take the card she sat regarding it for what seemed like minutes.  As she did, I was suddenly aware of who Mr. Adams was.  Only a few years earlier he had painted a reinterpretation of Paul César Helleu’s “La Lettre” and replaced the pale French lady with a more Mediterranean appearing model.  His painting had come up as a curiosity in my art history class during a brief failed attempt to learn anything useful at university.  No one knew why an artist of his standing would decide to duplicate a 19^th century society artist and then quit painting.  Seeing her in that pose I knew why and had an immediate and innocent longing for my easel, paints, and a canvas with which to capture the moment.  But my brushes and paints were locked in Maurice’s studio where they would remain until I paid him the money I owed for lessons.
                She didn’t notice or didn’t care that my attention had descended to where her gown had fallen open embracing exposed legs.  The fabric was a deep blue waterfall flowing from its source.  It spilled over perfect thighs, flowed around knees and calves then pooled across her ankles.  I could see the glint of a gold anklet on which was engraved, “Desiderium.”  She picked up her pipe and drew on it, her breast expanding beneath the bodice’s silk.  Imbedded sequins sparkled in the long rectangles of afternoon sun that stretched across the room.  She blew smoke at the card, as if to make it disappear in the sudden cloud, then set it back on the tray.
                “Mr. Adams can wait downstairs.”
                “You won’t receive him, Ma’am?”
                “No.  Tell him to wait.  Tell him I will come down,” she corrected me.  Sliding her legs back onto the lounge, she stretched one leg out while keeping the other arched, the slit in her gown closing like a theatre’s curtain.  She became pensive as she drew on the pipe and looked out over the ocean and the beach and the people below.  I turned to go.  She did not turn toward me again, but withdrawing the pipe asked, “What is your name?”
                Again, for a moment, I was flustered, unsure she had asked something of me.  “Ma’am?”
                “That can’t be right.  You called me Ma’am.  What kind of name is Ma’am for a boy?”
                “Sorry Ma’am, I meant to say Gordon.”
                “Gordon?  Just Gordon?”
                “If you wish to make a complaint with management Ma’am, Gordon will do.  I am the only Gordon on staff.”  My head sank, believing she had noticed me ogling her legs and had, in fact, taken offense.  I again turned toward the door to leave.  She rose from the lounge in a flowing motion as if water could rise to its feet and wash toward me.
                “No Gordon.  No complaint.  I wished to know who had brought me this message.  That’s all.”  She moved through the space between us like an incoming tide, the gown surging forward and receding with each step.  She ran her hand from my shoulder down my arm and grasped my hand.  “I upset you.  I’m sorry Gordon.  Please, forgive me.”
                Of course.  I would forgive her.  Her touch was absolution enough for whatever sin she believed she had committed.  At that touch she could perform no crime for which I would accuse her.  I was unable to speak or move, facing her, feeling her hand holding mine if only for that moment.  “I am sorry for assuming, Ma’am,” I stammered.  I did not know what else to say but felt a desire, a need to take her sin from her and crucify it within me.
                She smiled and released my hand.  “I’m Lois.  Nothing else.  Just Lois.  Now, please take my message to Mr. Adams.”
                In the hallway outside her room, I fell against the wall and exhaled.  The rush of breath relieved my tension but lifted Mr. Adams’ card off the tray and sent it spiraling to the floor.  I regarded it as she had before stooping to place it back on the tray for my return down the elevator.  In the lobby, Mr. Adams, his tuxedo and white tie oddly out of place so early in the afternoon, remained where I had left him.  Seeing me, his eyebrows rose above widening eyes and he smiled anticipating my message.
                “Madam requests that you wait here.  She will come down.”  I presented the tray to him with his card.
                His face reddened with rage.  He banged the tray with his fist sending the card flying and the tray clattering to the tile floor.  The lobby that had been filled with a hubbub of conversations went silent as everyone turned to see who or what had caused a commotion.  He was a full head taller than me.  His teeth, huge, gleaming and white, bit the air above me as he screamed into my upturned face, “Tell that bitch Randolph Adams does not wait.”  I flinched, fearing he intended to bite me.  Rabid spit from his outburst wetted my forehead.  As quickly as he spoke, he spun on one foot and strode out the door.
                The hotel manager rushed to where I stood, shaken, being alerted by the desk clerk that I had created a scene.  “What did you say to that gentleman?  Well?” he demanded.  Others in the lobby silently watched us, awaiting with the manager an explanation of how I could have created such a disturbance.  I bent down and picked up the tray, composing myself and not wanting to answer his question immediately since I was not in the wrong.  I took a handkerchief from my coat pocket and wiped my forehead.
                “I told the gentleman that the lady in 2130 asked him to wait.  That she would come down.  Apparently, Mr. Adams did not wish to wait.”  I said this in an even voice while looking the manager in the eye.  I did not want him to have any reason to believe that any fault lay with my actions or words.  The answer seemed to satisfy everyone as the hotel guests resumed their conversations and the manager turned to go back to his office.  “Put that tray away,” he said as a parting instruction to show he remained in charge.
                I called after him.  “Yes sir, but first I must inform the lady that Mr. Adams has left.”  It occurred to me he might decide to undertake to inform her himself.  A momentary spark of fear flashed through me.  But he continued toward his office saying over his shoulder, “Yes.  Do that.”  I marched with as much decorum as I could muster to the elevator and hugging the tray against my chest, as if it were her, leaned dreamily against the back wall as the elevator lifted me toward the paradise of her suite.
                Lois was standing at the window with her back to the door when I entered.  The pipe, extinguished, lay on the table beside the chaise lounge.
                “Ma’am.”
                She stepped back, sat and then slowly, luxuriously, reclined on the chaise lounge, as if she could only speak to me from there.  “Yes, I know.  Mr. Adams chose not to wait.  I saw him leaving.”  She nodded her head to indicate the window where I had found her.  She would have to have extraordinarily good eyesight to recognize a single figure, even one dressed for a formal evening, exiting the hotel from 21 floors up.
                “Gordon…,” she turned and for a moment I was struck with a sense of déjà vu recognizing the pose from Jacques-Louis David’s painting, “Madame Récamier.”  I had only recently admired it while scanning the book Art in the Louvre which someone had left in the lobby.  Yet her dress did not follow the modest classical style of David’s subject.  Instead, the bodice now plunged between her breast, which, partially exposed, appeared more ample than when covered.  I could not take my eyes away from the twin semicircles of flesh where the gown’s neckline descended into a V just above where I imagined her navel must be hidden.  I thought the bridge of her nose seemed straighter, too, almost Greek, and her complexion less olive than when I first saw her, “do you believe he will return?”
                I felt a sudden rush of embarrassment and pushed my eyes to the floor.  She had spoken to me yet seemed not to have noticed my lustful gawking. 
                “He seemed upset that you asked him to wait,” I said, understating the facts of his reaction and not wishing to pass on his explicit message.
                “I am sorry,” she said turning to again gaze at the horizon outside her window.  “We had such a lovely evening planned.”
                With her eyes averted, I could not help but return mine to her figure.  I was like a man trapped before the work of a master artist, recognizing in his painting a life more vibrant and real than his own dreary existence.  A man could die happy having just rested his head against the pillow of her breasts.
                “Such a pity,” she said in a voice so wistful that I, too, was drawn into her sadness.  She rose from the chaise lounge.  With each move she made, I felt as much as saw the twin half-moons move rhythmically, seductively, like visual music, like a mesmerizing dance.  “Would you like a drink.”
                She crossed to the small kitchenette and took two glasses down from the cabinet.  The clink of ice awakened me, reminded me she had been speaking.
                “I’m sorry.  Ma’am?”
                “Oh please.  I said it first.  Let me be the only one who is sorrowful.”
                “No.  I meant I did not hear your question.”
                “A drink?  Would you like a drink?”
                More than anything, yes, I wanted a drink.  More than anything I needed a drink.  It was not enough to only drink her in with my eyes.  I wanted to drink in her voice with my ears, drink in the scent of her perfume, drink in the touch of her skin, drink in the taste of her lips.
                But, I remembered myself, my job, and my station.
                “No ma’am,” I stammered and hung my head in shame for the thoughts that were racing through it.
                “Then I hope you don’t mind if I have one, Gordon.”  The sound of her saying my name sent a confession of pleasure racing down my spine.  She retired again to the chaise lounge and placed the glass on the side table where the pipe had lain.  I had not seen her move the pipe, but she must have because it was no longer there.  She again drew one leg beneath her so that her knee arched, revealing a creamy thigh and the curve of her calf that descended to a bare foot, the gold anklet now fully visible.  “Desiderium,” it read.  Had I imagined her taller?  Had she worn heels?  She sipped the drink then propped her wrist, drink in hand, across one arched knee.  The glass dipped letting the golden liquid rise toward its edge, yet it did not spill over.  I followed her gaze out the window but all I could see was the orange sun setting in a streak of coral sky.  As I watched the ocean darken, whitecaps dotting its surface which stretched to the horizon where orange and violet clouds glowed with the last light of the sinking day.
                “Gordon.  Do come back.”  I knew she was dismissing me as if I had failed some test.  Should I have accepted her offer of a drink?  Might we have engaged in high-minded conversation if I had – shared gentil repartee to replace the lost evening she had planned with Mr. Adams?  It seemed ludicrous to think so.  I left and again fell against the hallway wall to regain my composure.  Alison, one of the maids, stepped off the elevator carrying towels and sheets.
                “So this is where you’ve been,” she said on seeing me.  “Bull’s looking for you.”
                “I was just letting 2130 know her date had dumped her,” I said.  I tried to sound dismissive, as if it had been a chore to deal with the troublesome guest.  I hoped to hide my infatuation with Lois.
                “That takes an hour?”
                I looked at my watch.  Through the window at the far end of the hall I could see the evening lights coming on outside the neighboring hotel.  The other hotels were colored orange by the setting sun and above them was the darkening indigo sky.  Had it really been more than an hour since Mr. Adams spit all over me?  How had that happened?  How long had I been transfixed in Lois’ room fantasizing about her?  Had I really stood in her presence, mute and staring at her breast for almost an hour?
                “I’m an idiot,” I said under my breath and knocked my head back against the wall.
                Alison, who was halfway down the hall called back, “Yep, idiot, and you better go see what Bull wants.”  She knocked on 2135.  “Housekeeping.”  When there was no answer, she opened the door and disappeared inside.
                The manager stood in the middle of the lobby.  I could see he was not waiting for me in particular, but looking for any staff to victimize and, so, would be just as happy to corner me coming off the elevator.  I lowered my head and tried to sneak past him.  “Where have you been?”  Caught, I stopped and turned around to face him.
                “I was informing the lady in 2130 that her guest had left the hotel.”
                “Don’t give me that.  You expect me to believe it took you all afternoon to deliver a five second message.”
                “She wanted to talk,” I said.  “I thought I should respect that.”
                He drew his lips into thin lines and glared at me from under his brow, trying to decide if I was lying.  He leaned into my face and sniffed at my mouth for evidence of alcohol.  Finally satisfied, he decided it was best to accept my explanation.  “Okay.  But remember there are more guests in this hotel.  You are concierge to everyone, and they all deserve your attention.  See the restaurant manager.  We’ve been inundated with room service orders.  Damn storm.”
                I was suddenly aware of the palms and palmetto bushes beating the lobby windows as they whipped around in a wind that drove shafts of rain under the portico.  The doors eased open with each gust, sending a sinister howl through the lobby.  Even the valets had abandoned their outdoor stations to escape the storm’s fury and stood near the windows watching against hope for late arriving guests.  I was incredulous.  Only moments earlier I had been staring at a sunset over a calm ocean.

                Chef Minator, the Bull to those of us on staff with a literary bent, shoved a tray into my hands.  “Take this to 2130 and be quick.  I’ve got almost 15 more orders to go up.”  His command voice, reserved for ordering staff about, changed to a whine as he shook his head complaining, “Why don’t they come down to dining?”  For a large man with a fierce Aegean appearance, the Bull tended to cower in self-pity over how set upon he was by ungrateful guests.  Rather than sharing in his misery, I reveled at the chance to return and be of service to Lois.  The order filled me with gratitude for the Bull having reserved the task for me.
                “Thank you, sir.  Right away.”  He was so surprised that he quit wringing the towel he had used to hold the hot tray and looked dumbfounded at me.
                It did not occur to me that for her order to be ready she must have called it down before I was in the room since I had left her only moments earlier without knowing she had ordered.  I decided that even I could not daydream through her calling down.  She must have requested dinner at a time certain, after seeing Mr. Adams leaving and before I arrived to inform her of his departure.  That I should arrive in the kitchen at the very moment her dinner was to go up might be pure luck, or had she requested me?
                Lois answered my knock.  She had changed to a white dressing gown and my first impression was that she had become noticeably shorter so that our eyes aligned as she stood in the open door.  I must have been mistaken earlier when she appeared bare-footed.  She must, in fact, have worn heels, perhaps slipping out of them as she drew her feet up onto the chaise lounge.  My focus after all was on a higher plane of her anatomy.  Whatever the reason, I was happy that we were now more at eye level to one another.
                “Your order ma’am,” I said as I entered the room with an attempt at graceful motion.  But I could tell my movements were large and halting while she moved with the grace of a ballerina.  The pink silk pointe slippers she wore enhanced the impression.  I placed the tray on the side table.  Lois came up behind me, almost on top of me looking over my shoulder at the tray.
                “Thank you, Gordon.”  She stepped around me into the small circle of yellow light from a floor lamp beside the table.  Her hair, which had appeared jet black in the afternoon light, I could now see had more than a hint of henna in it.  Her complexion, too, appeared lighter, almost pale like someone raised in the sunless climate of northern Europe.  Funny how a simple change in lighting, dress and makeup can make such a difference, transforming a Mediterranean lady into an Irish lass.  She sat down and looked from me to the tray.
                “I guess you are glad now that you didn’t go out with Mr. Adams,” I said as I lifted the cover to show her the smoked salmon with crème fraîche.
                “Why is that?”  She gave me a girlishly mischievous smile and rested her head on the back of fingers stitched together beneath her chin.  “Are you teasing me about the quality of your hotel’s kitchen?”
                “Oh, no ma’am.  I meant with the storm.”
                “Don’t worry about Mr. Adams.  He has a hot temper, but it passes quickly with him.”
                I thought for a moment.  We were not talking about the same storm.  I motioned toward the window.  “The storm out…”  My voice trailed off.  Through the window, I could see the silhouette of the Grand next door.  The glow from various windows of occupied rooms dotted its façade.  Toward the beach, stars, as bright as I’ve ever seen them, swirled in a Van Gogh sky and shone through the glass in spite of the reflected glare from Lois’ lamp.  In the distance a ship, outlined by its pinhole-like portholes moved along the flat, dark ocean’s horizon.  I walked toward the window, watching my reflection approach me from out of the evening’s darkness.  “There was a storm,” I said more to myself than to Lois.
                “It must have come through while I was changing,” she said.  Lois stretched on the lounge, her dressing gown falling open.  The reflection in the glass placed her before me.  She drew her arms out of the gown’s sleeves and rested them along her body in a pose I recognized as Titian’s “Venus of Urbino.”  It was only for a second before she moved to set aside the dinner plate’s cover which I had left tilted on the edge of her plate, and using her knife and fork pinched off a bite of fish, swirled it in the sauce and ate it.  “This is delicious, Gordon.  Would you like to try?”
                She drew up one leg and the glint of the gold anklet flashed in the window.  “Desiderium.”
                I was still standing at the window staring at the glass as if it were a canvas in a dark museum, wanting but afraid to turn and see her in the flesh.
                “Gordon?”
                “Ah.  No ma’am.  I… I need to get back downstairs.”  I answered, trying to recover myself.  “Will there be anything else?”
                “Only if you will stay,” she said and laughed lightheartedly in a way that both pleased and aroused me.  It was an invitation I could not accept, though, and expect to keep my job.  I stepped to the door, stiffly and with my back to her, hiding my interest and struggling to keep my eyes averted.
                She was different from the woman I first fantasized painting.  Not just in her appearance, but in my attraction to her.  Before, Lois had seemed elegant, almost regal, out of reach when I announced Mr. Adams.  On the second visit she was not so much distant as alluring, sexual but still untouchable.  Now, with only her henna-colored hair falling over cream shoulders to cover her nakedness, she was pure desire, a girl I might lust after rather than a painting I could only admire.
                Any other concierge would have tarried at her invitation, indulged a guest who so obviously wanted to be indulged.  However, I needed my work.  I needed my paints, brushes, and easel – if only to paint her.  It was not fear of losing my job really so much as fear of losing myself in obsession at that moment which caused me to rush from the room.  I fought the desire to return to her as the elevator descended.  It was useless.  My every thought was of Lois, alone and inviting.  When I could stand it no more, I longed for the end of my shift.
                The minutes ticked by.  I saw Joseph, my relief, enter the hotel and go to check in.  Immediately, I called room 2130 and heard the melody of Lois’ voice reach out and entrance me.  “Hello?”
                “Lois, this is Gordon the concierge.”
                “Yes, Gordon?”
                “If I may be so bold, when I came to your room earlier this evening you asked me to stay.  Unfortunately, I had to return to my duties, but I am off now and was wondering if I may make up for my abrupt departure by coming up now.”
                “Gordon.  That would be so nice but let me come down.  Wait in the lobby.  It’s such a lovely night I would like to walk the beach.”
                It was a perfect dream.  The idea of walking the beach with her, seeing her hair unbound floating on the sea breezes and listening to the music of her voice mingle with the crashing waves.  Far off cruise ship revelers would pass by never knowing how declassee their existence had become and, if knowing, envy me in the presence of Lois.  I was enraptured watching the elevator each time it arrived at the lobby floor anticipating her before being crushed by disappointment when only strangers, or hotel guests or staff stepped out.

                And so, I have grown old waiting in this lobby.  I am fired from my job many years back because I became unable to concentrate on other guests.  Nor was I any longer requested to attend room 2130.  My paints have no doubt dried in their tubes and the hairs of my brushes fallen out as have the hairs on my head.  It is likely true that Maurice no longer even remembers my debt or me.  At first the clerks tried to run me out of the lobby until I told them I was awaiting the lady in room 2130.  The concierge invariably returns with a message that madam asks that I wait.  I know they tolerate my presence only because she asks them to.  A man with any pride would have cursed her and slunk off to a dark, seedy room where he, as I suspect Mr. Adams did, could find the solitude necessary to put a bullet in his brain.  I wait because Lois has requested I wait.  I live on for the hope she may yet come down.  The staff endures me though my clothes are no longer cleaned and pressed, and I appear more mendicant than mannered.

The End