Classic Poem

The Atlantic City Convention

A Composition in Two Parts: Poem and Speech

No wit (and none needed) but
the silence of her ways, grey eyes in
a depth of black lashes —
The eyes look and the look falls.

There is no way, no way. So close
one may feel the warmth of the cheek and yet there is
no way.

The benefits of poverty are a roughened skin
of the hands, the broken
knuckles, the stained wrists.

Serious. Not as the others.
All the rest are liars, all but you.
Wait on us.
Wait on us, the hair held back practically
by a net, close behind the ears, at the sides of
the head. But the eyes —
but the mouth, lightly (quickly)
touched with rouge.

The black dress makes the hair dark, strangely
enough, and the white dress makes it light.
There is a mole under the jaw, low under
the right ear —

And what arms!

The glassruby ring
on the fourth finger of the left hand.

— and the movements
under the scant dress as the weight of the tray
makes the hips shift forward slightly in lifting
and beginning to walk —

The Nominating Committee presents the following
resolutions, etc. etc. etc. All those
in favor signify by saying, Aye. Contrariminded,
No.
Carried.
And aye, and aye, and aye!

And the way the bell-hop runs downstairs:
ta tuck a
ta tuck a
ta tuck a
ta tuck a
ta tuck a
and the gulls in the open window screaming over the slow
break of the cold waves —

O unlit candle with the soft white
plume, Sunbeam Finest Safety Matches all together in
a little box —

And the reflections of both in
the mirror and the reflection of the hand, writing
writing —
Speak to me of her!

— and nobody else and nothing else
in the whole city, not an elecctric sign of shifting
colors, fourfoot daisies and acanthus fronds going from
red to orange, green to blue — forty feet across —

Wait on us, wait
on us with your momentary beauty to be enjoyed by
none of us. Neither by you, certainly,
nor by me