near your lipstick, puff and nail-file–
a white mouse, made of ivory.
Thus
yo~
exist.
II
(1939)
In your own Carinthia now,
your corsage is the crescent
hedges of flowering myrtle .
you sashay on the curb of a stagnant pond,
and watch the carp timidily swallowing, swallowing,
or saunter under the lime trees,
and follow the kindling night
along the frowsy shorefront.
The mauve and orange awnings of landings
and
pensioni
throw
a bonfire on the water.
Night, blanketing
the fogging lake coves,
brings only the catcalls of geese,
the put-put-put of the outboards-
the snow-pure majolica of your interior
has seen you alter,
and tells your fly-blown mirror
a story of cool miscalculations,
now engraved where no sponge can expunge.
That's your legend, Dora!
but
it
is written already
on the moist lips of sugar daddies
with weak, masculine sideburns
in the ten inch gold frames
of the grand hotels-
it lives in the asthma
