Classic Poem

The buckhounds went on under the rain
with the wet fern swinging lace over their eyes
and their skins hanging like crumpled velvet

the bucks shod with leaves like silk sandals
danced on chopsticks over the suey of red lizards
white stalks
and caterpillars

the gentlemen slapped with their crop-butts at their clean leather

Now the gentlemen turn back out of the high dripping world
to fires that repeat themselves in the copper
of andirons and whiskey glasses

with the throats of the buckhounds sunk over their insteps
and the hound teats bruised blue on the fine floor