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ANTHRACITE BACON
Poetry Bookshop
I married a famous palmist
In Leipzig—
Joined myself to one
Who had imagination but no rhythm in her soul—
To gain a home
Long since dissolved by extravagance and death.
It was my desire to live well;
In Paris if I might choose
Where poets are not so much the fashion
As the feeders of a lyric nation.
The Alexandrine was my metre,
None it seems care about that in this country.
And not to starve I stilled my song
To vend the songs of other poets
Whose vocation is but avocation now with me.
Fate has not been friend to me.
Could I have loved like Rupert Brooke
Or lived like Amy Lowell
I ask you fairly to decide
If I'd be urging you to buy their books
Instead of selling my own?
