“Follies”

“What will survive of us is love”
Philip Larkin

December, 1971. A light snow. The Taft Hotel.
Our room across the street, overlooked
the Winter Garden stage door. I was green
and this was to be my first taste of Broadway.
By the time the lights and trumpets

lifted on the “Loveland” number,
I was lost in years monogrammed
across silk sashes, wigs, and in the follies
of relationships — only a few going right.
Are we ever awake, or is all of this dream?

Not a tiny fleck of foreshadowing that,
given a handful of years and a little
more seasoning, this city would become
my home, the anvil of my art, the abode
of my glorious ghosts for over thirty years.

2011, primed with anticipation and an
entirely new gaggle of friends, I rustle
in my seat through “the revival;” –– cast,
lose, and reel, myself back in; once again
in the bars of “…spend sleepless nights….”

Scott Hightower is the author of three books. This fall, Self-Evident, his fourth collection stateside, is forthcoming from Barrow Street Press. Early next year, Oases/Hontanares, a bi-lingual book, is forthcoming from Devenir, Madrid. Hightower teaches as adjunct faculty at NYU and Drew University. A native of central Texas, he lives in Manhattan and sojourns in Spain.