The Fall of Fancy Man
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
The check arrives on a whiff of sour--
air loosed from a dank and secret closet.
Gold pried from the hands of an old man
and scattered across the country like withered diamonds
too sick and too tired to shine.
Landing in the laps of elsewhere strangers
dangling from the limbs of a tattered family tree.
Once he was a fancy man.
Zorro cape riding the winds.
Each shoe flaunting its own personal shade of neon sass.
His pompadour--
a spectacle of architectural swoop-dee-doo.
A petrified tower of sculpted waves, black dye
and a can’s worth of Aqua Net, Extra Hold.
A beautiful boy.
A sensitive boy.
A fancy man sweeping through for-the-trade-only showrooms--
finely-grained wood buffed to a satin sheen.
Silken damask, so intricately woven.
Down cushions.
And eight-way-hand-tie.
All basking in the gleam of crystal and polished brass.
Palaces of gilded excess.
Where affluent dowagers and wives of the fat rich
trailed in the wake of Fancy Man’s Day-Glo heels.
That’s where I left Fancy Man--
frozen in time.
Cavorting in the company of flattery and wealth.
Where gold-veined marble lazes beneath too bright spotlights.
And fabrics drape so luxuriously
just the feel could pull a tear from a designer’s eye.
That’s where I kept him--
running his hands across velvety settees.
Flirting with full-bosomed matrons
and their American Express cards.
That’s not where he stayed.
Drink found the herd of elephants wedged tight inside his brain…
Squeezing oxygen from his lungs.
Beasts stinking of ritual frankincense.
Beasts making sport of altar cloths and holy relics.
Beasts snorting Gregorian chants
that echoed always through his head like fever.
Drink with its flattening, surly disposition
calling forth the drugged stupor of sleep
and a come-hither invite
to a swelling hoard of fancy, bygone treasures
blighted by rodent leavings
and layered in grease of unknown origins.
Drink that summoned the mold,
to watch it bloom
on hand-painted wallpaper,
inch across coffered ceilings,
and creep under the bathroom tiles.
A beautiful boy.
A sensitive boy.
A fancy boy swallowed by the fancy man.
A fallen, broken fancy man
swaddled in blankets
in his boyhood bed until his final breath--
an unheard blunt of wheeze and rattle--
fell into silence.
Then the discovery of gold.
Pried from his ghost fists.
Strewn across the land
into the grip of elsewhere strangers
and their non-fancy lives
without so much as a thank you
or a fitting, fancy-man goodbye.
khf/2023
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
The check arrives on a whiff of sour--
air loosed from a dank and secret closet.
Gold pried from the hands of an old man
and scattered across the country like withered diamonds
too sick and too tired to shine.
Landing in the laps of elsewhere strangers
dangling from the limbs of a tattered family tree.
Once he was a fancy man.
Zorro cape riding the winds.
Each shoe flaunting its own personal shade of neon sass.
His pompadour--
a spectacle of architectural swoop-dee-doo.
A petrified tower of sculpted waves, black dye
and a can’s worth of Aqua Net, Extra Hold.
A beautiful boy.
A sensitive boy.
A fancy man sweeping through for-the-trade-only showrooms--
finely-grained wood buffed to a satin sheen.
Silken damask, so intricately woven.
Down cushions.
And eight-way-hand-tie.
All basking in the gleam of crystal and polished brass.
Palaces of gilded excess.
Where affluent dowagers and wives of the fat rich
trailed in the wake of Fancy Man’s Day-Glo heels.
That’s where I left Fancy Man--
frozen in time.
Cavorting in the company of flattery and wealth.
Where gold-veined marble lazes beneath too bright spotlights.
And fabrics drape so luxuriously
just the feel could pull a tear from a designer’s eye.
That’s where I kept him--
running his hands across velvety settees.
Flirting with full-bosomed matrons
and their American Express cards.
That’s not where he stayed.
Drink found the herd of elephants wedged tight inside his brain…
Squeezing oxygen from his lungs.
Beasts stinking of ritual frankincense.
Beasts making sport of altar cloths and holy relics.
Beasts snorting Gregorian chants
that echoed always through his head like fever.
Drink with its flattening, surly disposition
calling forth the drugged stupor of sleep
and a come-hither invite
to a swelling hoard of fancy, bygone treasures
blighted by rodent leavings
and layered in grease of unknown origins.
Drink that summoned the mold,
to watch it bloom
on hand-painted wallpaper,
inch across coffered ceilings,
and creep under the bathroom tiles.
A beautiful boy.
A sensitive boy.
A fancy boy swallowed by the fancy man.
A fallen, broken fancy man
swaddled in blankets
in his boyhood bed until his final breath--
an unheard blunt of wheeze and rattle--
fell into silence.
Then the discovery of gold.
Pried from his ghost fists.
Strewn across the land
into the grip of elsewhere strangers
and their non-fancy lives
without so much as a thank you
or a fitting, fancy-man goodbye.
khf/2023
