Hauteville (island home of Victor Hugo)

The sharp lanes of Guernsey
Lead to this poet's house
So unexpectedly -
The facade undemanding,
A pale masquerade for the
Shock of an interior
Founded to excite and
Occupy a mind in exile
From the fast fury of
Old France over the water.

The tourist eye slips blind
From bright Channel light
To rich gloom at the
Core of the place.
This is its essence.
A French girl with the complexion
Of skimmed milk
Fills the corners of the rooms
With her halting, awe-tipped
Talk of the history of shape,
The eccentricity of colour.

His island home is high whimsy
She winks.
It fields the surprise of a secret door,
An amalgamation of the disparate,
An elevation of the utilitarian
That precedes Duchamp.

She runs a fine finger
Across the length of a
Polished table crafted
From an ancient door,
I think about the times
She has followed this story before
And expect a shallow
Runnel to follow the table's grain.

The workmanship is tender
To the earthy aesthetic of
The Arts and Crafts,
Carved panels mediate a
Writer's retreat from
Incenced church to
A greater, fonder God -
In the Japanese panel,
In the Delft plate,
In the framed portrait
Of a daughter later lost.

Outside
In Hugo's exuberant garden
My Father smokes his rolled tobacco
To the sound of the fountain.

Inside
The French girl capitulates.
We follow her fragile waist
Around the stairs banister
To the uppermost room
Where, she says, he wrote
And yearned for France.

A room bright white,
Bare as a leveret,
Basic as ink on white paper.