BOURGEOIS POET
41S
are hurled in the gutters: the G.I.'s are looking for bottles. The
Bavarian Venus is snatched baldheaded.
I have a big sister; she has mighty breasts. She writes poems for the
immigration office. Her crotch is on the fourteenth floor.
La geante, la geante!
Standing at the pure white rail, stately we pass you, and the classes
mingle as if by decree. At the last buoy the discreet signs begin
to take effect: First Class, Second Class. My brazen sister
swirling her nightgown, green as the spouts of Chartres. Her
comb is combing my lice (but I have no lice). Her apron
i<:
hitched up in front. She stands on a full-sized bank.
Across the iambic pentameter of the Atlantic (the pilot dropped,
the station wagon in the hold) we sail to the kingdom of Small.
Is it cheaper there? Can I buy a slave?
This is the camera with the built-in lie. This is the lens that defies
the truth. There's nothing for it but to write the large bad
poem in middleclass magic. Poem condemned to wear black, be
quoted in churches, versatile as Greek. Condemned to remain
unsung by criminals.
