This scene is a gift, wrapped in glitter and bright lights,
pristine and whole in its ingenuity. From outside, windows from wall to ceiling
frame it, as if it were art.
Step inside and know, feel history has taken place here.
Delicate brocade runs up the walls to meet with the twilight,
where the mesh and fold into one another.
Follow the spidering maps in the wood grain in any direction
and surely you'll uncover a secret.
North to the dining room table, all cherry wood and stark indifference
to meet the plays of lust and dirty lies that have surely occurred
inches over its surface. Look there now, see them hover?
East will take a wobbling guest, buoyant with bubbly,
to the residency's flower beds, pretentious in their simplicity
amongst such lavish settings. Keep watch for the snakes.
South. South goes up and up and up in a corkscrew of wrought iron
and silver then dies out upon reaching its vanishing point.
Those steps take you nowhere.
Once you leave the stars behind you beg the shadows to claim you.
And they live here. Under carpets etched with gold,
and tinkling fixtures fashioned of frozen constellations, they do exist.
Go west and forget these creatures.
West lies a door and a mirror, the latter appearing to slither
and bend in upon itself as you peer in, distorted.
Behind you, the party plays out and each guest is a dancer,
a puppet, bobbing to and fro,
not caring if their tipping point is reached
because they know the walls will catch them.
These walls, these glorious, innocent walls that have beared witness
to more than they ever intended.
The whispers might never hope to escape
and become echoes with them standing guard.
These titans, monolithic sheets of paper, really, sag and struggle
to form the shape of this present, everlasting.
