Trained in a circus of swans
she
proceeds recedingly
Her eliminate flesh of fashion
inseparable from the genealogical tree
columns such towering reticence
of lifted chin
her hiccoughs seem
preparatory to bowing to the Queen
Her somersault descent
into the half-baked underworld
nor the inebriate regret
disturb
her vertical caste
“They drove ’em from the cradle on the curb”
This abbess-prostitute
presides
Jazz-Mass
the gin-fizz eucharist dispenses
—she kisses and curses
in the inconsummate embraces
of a one armed Pittsburger
“Here zip along out of that, Laura!”
“I can’t come to Armenonville with you-u
I want to stay here and behave like a grue-u”
Her hell is
Zelli’s
Where she floods the bar
with all her curls
in the delirious tears from those bill-poster eyes
plastering ‘court proceedings’ on the wall
of her inconsiderable soul
A tempered tool
of an exclusive finishing-school
her velvet larynx
slushes
“Glup—you mustn’t speak to me
I’m bad—haven’t you heard?
I’m Orful—o—g’lup I’m Horrid”
She gushes
“——know young Detruille?
Isn’t he di-vi-ne
Such a sweet nature
that boy has
The other night when he tucked in with me
we talked most seriously
we have the same ideals
My dear he has
the eyes of Buddha
O I think he’s simply di-vi-ne
The only man who ever understood
everything— If I’d liked
he would’a’
married me
O I think he’s simply di-vi-ne”
Out of the sentimental slobber
Lady Laura—momentarily sober
“How queer—that Detruille
said that he
once was introduced—
Well, I do wonder
how on earth ever such a bounder
happened to meet my people”
Sobs on my shoulder—
the memorable divorcée
and christened by the archbishop of Canterbury
Sixteen co-re—
Well let that pass!
She is yet like a diamond on a heap of broken glass.