POVERTY COMES TO THE KENNEDYS
1.
It came gradually, the solution first served
with starched napkin, tea,
the slice of lemon,
with the charming elegancies
of hysteria.
Of course some one must take
the guilt.
This the Kingdom Com~.
With the first relinqusihing,
two meals a day, then one
with an occasional dinner at a friend's
the dry thanks of necessity.
And the words between them
less with each regression.
He cancelled his magazines
so that only the daily paper
was between them and
the separation of their minds.
They no longer saw each other
with eyes, only a heavyness
of displaced bodies.
The day they slept and the night
they slept
the dampness of a cold water flat
in their bones.
Their senses closed them
Il1
and they finally sat
tight, apart,
their thoughts an endless
carousel of upmoving,
33