And when the astonished stars push aside their curtains they will see us fall exhausted where wheels and the pounding feet of horses will crush forth our laughter. SYMPATHETIC PORTRAIT OF A CHILD The murderer’s little daughter who is barely ten years old jerks her shoulders right and left so as to catch a glimpse of me without turning round. Her skinny little arms wrap themselves this way then that reversely about her body! Nervously she crushes her straw hat about her eyes and tilts her head to deepen the shadow-- smiling excitedly! As best as she can she hides herself in the full sunlight her cordy legs writhing beneath the little flowered dress that leaves them bare from mid-thigh to ankle-- Why has she chosen me for the knife that darts along her smile? THE OGRE Sweet child, little girl with well shaped legs you cannot touch the thoughts I put over and under and around you. This is fortunate for they would burn you to an ash otherwise. Your petals would be quite curled up. This is all beyond you--no doubt, yet you do feel the brushings of the fine needles; the tentative lines of your whole body prove it to me; so does your fear of me, your shyness; likewise the toy baby cart that you are pushing-- and besides, mother has begun to dress your hair in a knot. These are my excuses. RIPOSTE Love is like water or the air my townspeople; it cleanses, and dissipates evil gases. It is like poetry too and for the same reasons. Love is so precious my townspeople that if I were you I would have it under lock and key-- like the air or the Atlantic or like poetry! THE OLD MEN Old men who have studied every leg show in the city Old men cut from touch by the perfumed music-- polished or fleeced skulls that stand before the whole theater in silent attitudes of attention,-- old men who have taken precedence over young men and even over dark-faced husbands whose minds are a street with arc-lights. Solitary old men for whom we find no excuses-- I bow my head in shame for those who malign you. Old men the peaceful beer of impotence be yours! PASTORAL If I say I have heard voices who will believe me? “None has dipped his hand in the black waters of the sky nor picked the yellow lilies that sway on their clear stems and no tree has waited long enough nor still enough to touch fingers with the moon.” I looked and there were little frogs with puffed out throats, singing in the slime. SPRING STRAINS