Los Gatos Jubilee: Poem—Dinner at Manresa

Editor's Note: We asked and you answered ... more than a dozen stories and poems about Los Gatos have been shared with us on our Los Gatos Jubilee Facebook page, or at the end of posts on this site for publication beginning Aug. 10, 2012, in honor of the town's quasquicentennial celebration. This is the ninth submission written by Los Gatos poet Erica Goss paying homage to the town we all love so much on We're joining the Museums of Los Gatos StoryShare project and sharing with them your contributions here.

Dinner at Manresa

Our table awaited us, lit with droplets of phosphorescent seawater,

each napkin wrapped, tucked and tied with stems of Neolithic rye.

We began with a salad of sea vegetables harvested by unmarried mermen

and wedges of cheese from cows fed white flowers in moonlight.

A few hours later our waiter brought the voice of the west wind

caught in hinged bamboo boxes, then a bonsai forest sculpted from

iced asparagus, arranged in terrariums, and drizzled with dewberry sauce,

followed by dark brown breasts of Muscovy duck trimmed in silver feathers

and dappled with salted foam – our knives touched – too much?

My fork tapped the slope of a miniature mountain amended

with live mushrooms, nestled on a plate of scented grasses,

undulating in the warm breeze.  For dessert, the view from 30,000 feet

rendered in clouds of meringue, and a small box to open later which

we held in our interlaced fingers like the promise we made all those years ago.