The New Cabaret

The laughter
of those who enter
a new cabaret
begins to change it.
Something in the air shivers,
like thin metal being shaken.
The space contracts
and expands. Soon, one voice rises
above the others, singing its way
into the woodwork, pushing the ceiling
up another story.  Applause,
and the heart of the room reaches out
for an embrace.
Everyone goes home
and the room is left
to slowly fall back into itself.

In the meantime, it swells and
shrinks with memory.  Perhaps
someone in attendance
brushed a corner molding
and left fabric behind,
or perhaps someone
moved by a word or a note
bit their lip and bled a small drop
into the floor. 

The room is not
the space it was. The people
who were there are not the people
they were. Only the actual moment of song
holds the distinction of remaining
static, by virtue of having passed
into history, no trace of it
in the framing and walls and paint.
Perfect, permanently free
of the burden of needing to be
refreshed when the club closes,
six months later,
for renovation
into another kind of space —
a boutique, a dry cleaner, a bistro.

This is the nature of such things:
they come and go, rooms hold
a little trace of their passing,
the rooms pass and change,
the people pass and change,
and only the music remains
in a place no one can move,
remodel, or demolish.