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From “Kaleidoscope”
SHE was so young, so like a tigress, | |
| Her large round eyes of jet and amber | |
| Lanceting one through from edge to edge | |
| And from side to side with a girl’s ferocity. | |
| Her hair was short, also jet in hue | 5 |
| With blue lustres in it, and her lips were round | |
| And full, and her breasts were round and full, | |
| And they shot through the black wool mesh | |
| Great shafts of jungle fire out at one. | |
| She made no other overture. | 10 |
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| Following her, upon the bridge made of young trees | |
| Turned so like dusted ivory with the heats and rains | |
| And fogs, and early dews and mists— | |
| Or, as one would say, blanched to a veritable white— | |
| Her mother. | 15 |
| Her mother, shaded by a parasol, walked discreetly | |
| So many paces behind her—so many paces, | |
| Smiling at something, surely not this, | |
| Smiling with a vague enthusiasm; | |
| For she was too old to laugh heartily about lusting flesh. | 20 |
| She had no breasts now, and her eyes were rimmed | |
| With gold, and there was no light and no heat in them, | |
| Or any tendency to casual fervors. | |
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| But she was young, so like a tigress— | |
| Her very large round eyes of jet and amber | 25 |
| Lanceting through one from chest to spine | |
| And from scalp to heel with a girl’s ferocity. | |
| She had her lusty appointment with the sea. | |
| Her suit of black wool showed all of that— | |
| Her lips were not colored, | 30 |
| And her hands were pale—the mother had no breasts. | |
| This was certainly a fair exchange for the sea. | |
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