The Magician Remembers - poem

THE MAGICIAN REMEMBERS

"His lovely assistant direct from an exclusive engagement on stage in Paris...
Miss Darlene Delight!"

It was an intro at least,
even though you never got any closer to Paris
than french toast in an all-night diner.
All those nights on the road
when we were just starting out
you and I were the real show after hours --
dangling our heels off the threadbare fire escapes
of run-down hotels,
renaming every star in the sky.
We'd finally fall into bed together,
dizzy with the thunderous applause
of our own two hearts.
Even if the cheapest vintage
was the most we could afford,
when we held it up together to the light,
it always changed into something brighter.
We were a good act, Darlene,
but something went wrong.

The Linking Rings, the Miser's Dream,
the Disappearing Silks -- I could always
work wonders with a crowd.
It was when you were my private audience
that I fumbled, dropped things,
couldn't produce even a single penny
for your thoughts. If
I snatched a bouquet of roses
out of the thin air of your bluest days
they always turned out to be paper
when you needed the fire of something genuine
to light your way.
In the end we were worn down and out.
All our sniping, the backbiting,
the way we sawed each other in half
with words -- what did we know? What did anyone?
I mean the rubes in the cheap seats,
the perfumed dandies up closer,
all hoping for any slip-up, nudging each other, whispering
"Mirrors." "Invisible threads." "Hidden pockets." --
what did any of them know
of how desperately we searched
for our own version of "How It's Really Done",
of what it took some nights just to go on?
We were too much in love
with the miraculous
and it hurt, didn't it,
to see how ordinary we really were.
At least under the lights
we could palm our disappointment for awhile
and bring some magic back into our lives.

So now I do supermarket openings, birthdays.
People don't want levitation anymore
and the Secrets of the East.
They want anti-gravity, patter about the New Physics.
What happened? It's the greatest vanishing act
of all time -- all those years gone
without so much as a trail of smoke,
and me, rising from a lifetime's sleep
Amazed! Mystified! Astonished!...old.
I just don't want to forget,
to be in turn forgotten.

So please tell me, Miss Delight,
that you can still hear the applause;
that you haven't forgotten
the three months we headlined the Emporium;
all those nights the act was so seamless
we could both almost believe.
I'd trade it all now for one more pass
through the one routine I could never master --
to make us matter enough, Darlene.
To make us last. With a flourish.