For me, it's a natural trip from that poem to this, that trip
from the natural world to the world of physical confinement.
The organization mentioned in this poem--
I belong to a number of them by reputation,
but I'm a card carrying member of very few organizations,
not even the Association of University Professors.
But I belong to the SAM, and this is about them,
and the forum will explain what they are.
This is called Magic Night at the Reformatory.
We're here because we're here, and the gray haired salesman
begins our act with coins, plucking them out
of the air with his white fingers.
And in this room, in this building, in a reformatory,
all the young men sit still in their folding chairs
to see him making something from nothing.
When he caught the coins, it spilled out of his nose
into a nickel plated bucket, he grinned.
What am I doing grinning here with the others,
taking, waiting my turn, sweating it out
at the edge of the platform?
The trick is showing your teeth at the right time,
but every boy should know the applause goes on,
then off, they pass it out, then jerk it back,
looking around to see what the others are putting or taking.
The money shines in their eyes, they purse their mouths.
Now the fat banker is carrying a newspaper down
and crossways, dividing the who from how
and cutting the bad news in half again and again to a wad
the size of a wallet and then unfolding it whole.
For God's sake, don't teach them anything
they can use, the warden said, and no female assistant.
Deadpanned, they slump in their seats,
not being fooled, not being taken in.
The doctor cut the rope, knots it,
restores it, and bumbles off stage, dropping his scissors.
The architect conjures doves from a warming pan,
and one flaps up, goes skittering around
a windowless of room, flies back to become a squab, which
he nods for an exit.
And then I'm on, with only a deck of cards,
watching my hands grow thick through waterfall and accordion
shuffle, fans, sloppy arm turnovers, and colored things,
as I learned when I was too young and too lucky to get
arrested, except on Halloween.
I remember friends who taught me to steal book, then
how to write them.
What kind of sleight of hand will work tomorrow?
What kind of example were we supposed to be?
The White, Indian, and Negro faces
are watching to see what we can do, if anything--
production, destruction, restoration, illusion,
manipulations, with no intermission,
with nothing usable in the house of correction.
And I finish by throwing cards with a flick of the wrist,
skimming one after the other over their head
and into the dark, at the back of a room where they smack
into the wall and drop to the floor,
like sparrows conking themselves on glass.
The random applause does nothing to anyone.
The lights go on.
One Indian is trying to throw a card with a flick of the wrist,
it sticks in his fingers.
And we, the nervous Society of American Magicians,
cluster to talk about ourselves.
The guards reform the audience and file it loud and long
through a corridor to vanish.
Under the floodlit night, we stroll
to the gate, which opens, as if by magic.
[APPLAUSE]