Land’s End

The broad outlines shrink and descend
into the grotto where at land’s end
the many pallored wait by the wall
of night blooming jasmine to recall
the terms of kisses and of promises
that no one misses fading to a turn
of honey briars where the shadows burn
an evanescent moment at the last
resort the present breaks into the past.

What have they become, do they remain
to bury there until the morning plane,
exhibits of headlines that are stellar
until the last keg smashes through the cellar
and reconfigured as Christmas lights
blend Hollywood with Honolulu nights
till the dreamt flights hang from them like pearls
amid an ocean of a thousand girls,
what is it that they whisper in the ear
as if at last their meaning could come near.

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Ben Mazer was born in New York City in 1964. His poetry collections include Poems (The Pen & Anvil Press, 2010), and January 2008 (Dark Sky Books). He lives in Boston, where he is a contributing editor to Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics.