The Throne

In crisis

I go to the local library

and do not take out

the book I find,

this one or that one first,

what matter?

Outside beside my car

sits a strange chrome and vinyl seat,

part of a vanity set,

stranded, hieratic, ruined,

like the beautiful straight-backed

low seated chair-people

of Saint Martin d’Ardèche.

I do the visual maths.

Will it fit behind?

—no, there, rightfully, is the seat for our grandson—

I consign its odd allure to my phone’s photo bank instead.

I sit on it only once,

open its cream frayed seat

with its tooled insignia of promise

—nothing—

What does it mean

for home to be a failure?

What does it mean

for other places to be a failure?

I leave the throne to its own

mise en scène, neither

desolate nor replete

were I to claim it.

There is, after all, no mirror

in front of which to place it

though I fix my hair and do my lips

before I reverse away.

Lucy Dougan