​

Murphy Bed

 

In the movies of my childhood there were

often Murphy beds hidden in smooth walls,

perhaps in small NYC apartments, great props

for comediennes. Ann Tyler wrote of an old lady's

Murphy bed she always fearfully looked under

after pulling it down for the night, she, perhaps,

like me, too much taught hopes and fears

by the movies of those days. My friends and I

could walk to see, for 10 cents, a new show,

a cartoon, newsreel and serial (a cliffhanger).             

 

I never dreamed I wanted a Murphy bed until

my friends got one, a family heirloom, and I was

allowed to sleep on it in their added-on room

overlooking the lake, windows all around. This piece

not like an ironing board hidden in the wall

but an impressive, heavy affair of golden oak

with elegant scrolls of floral design, a hidden bed

to be  moved about with effort and muscle,

a fantasy  meant for elegant, over-furnished rooms

of an era with servants meant for heavy-lifting..

 

That night, my first visit since they inherited

the stately piece, I slept in Victorian splendor, awakened ,

as always, before anyone else, turned on the coffee,

sipped and watched from among pillows and comforter

as the east lightened, the lake glittered,  and I surely

would have swooned into the arms of any dashing hero

who might have entered into my romantic setting.

Every later visit I hoped to repeat my night

of elegant comfort, but they had pushed the piece

aside forever and returned me to the guest room.

 

Now the lake house is gone, and the Murphy bed

must have been a victim of downsizing.

I never asked where it went

or even asked myself where "they went," 

those, my youthful dreams of romantic splendor.