POOR PEOPLE'S DREAMS

Sometimes women with eyes like wet green berries

Glide across the slick mirror of their own smiles

And vanish through lengths of gold and marble drawing rooms.

The marble smiles,

As sensuous as snow;

Hips of the Graces;

Shoulders of Clytie;

Breasts frozen as foam,

Frozen as camelia bloom;

Mounds of marble flesh,

Inexplicable wonder of white....

I dream about statuesque beauties

Who look from the shadows of opera boxes;

Or elegant ladies in novels of eighteen thirty,

At the hunt ball...

Reflections in a polish floor,

A portrait by Renoir,

A Degas dancing girl,

English country houses,

An autumn afternoon in the Bois,

Something I have read of...

In sleep one vision retreating through another,

Like mirrors being doors to other mirrors,

Satin, and lace, and white shoulders,

And elegant ladies,

Dancing, dancing.