Poem of the week: An Explanation of Doily by Gwyneth Lewis

"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."

"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 walk, a mermaid, on razor-torn feet 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."

An observer walks coatless on a beach beneath storm clouds that loom like spaceships while waves whisper behind a sandbank. A doily functions practically between rich cake and china and visually as paper filigree, fragile like fingers. Everyday objects and shoreline elements become doilies: a shoe, shells underfoot, and parts of the sea that surfers ride to their doom. The tide displays wave-samples like a carpet seller and the sea murmurs resignedly about inevitable endings. Cloud formations parade as imperial busts, philosophers, and poets, and stars echo the repeated refrain of doily.

Read at www.theguardian.com