THE GAME
(Le
leu)
Cheeks chalked, blacked lashes, eyes still terrible-–
old bags glittering under chandeliers,
as they titter and make a waterfall
of stone and metal fall from their thin ears;
my hang-dog shadow joining in the queue,
as fixtures holding fifty candles light
the profiles of great men who used to write,
and here gasp out their ulcerous guts to screw;
crowding this gameboard, faces without lips,
lips white as teeth, false uppers without jaws,
bone fingers running through the youthful grips,
still fumbling emptied pockets and false bras .
This is the sort of tableau of my doom
self-love imagines for my terminus;
stuck in a corner of the waiting-room,
I see myself withdrawn and lecherous-
envying the war-horses' running sores,
this
one's torn nerves, that one's arthritic grace,
the graveyard gaity of these old whores,
angling their flesh for traffic in my face-
envying those who scuttle character,
and crowd full sail into the blue abyss–
these drunk for blood, who
in
the end prefer
dishonor to death, and hell to nothingness.
