The Book of Repulsive Women/Seen From the "L"
So she stands-nude-stretching dully
Two amber combs loll through her hair
A vague molested carpet pitches
Down the dusty length of stairs.
She does not see, she does not care
It's always there.
The frail mosaic on her window
Facing starkly toward the street
Is scribbled there by tipsy sparrows–
Etched there with their rocking feet.
In fashioned too, to every beat
Of shirt and sheet.
Still her clothing is less risky
Than her body in its prime,
They are chain-stitched and so is she
Ravelling grandly into vice
Dropping crooked into rhyme.
Slipping through the stitch of virtue,
Into crime.
Though her lips are vague as fancy
In her youth–
They bloom vivid and repulsive
As the truth.
Even vases in the making
Are uncouth.
We see your arms grow humid
In the heat;
We see your damp chemise lie
Pulsing in the beat
Of the over-hearts left oozing
At your feet.
See you sagging down with bulging
Hair to sip,
The dappled damp from some vague
Under lip.
Your soft saliva, loosed
With orgy, drip.
Once we'd not have called this
Woman you—
When leaning above your mother's
Spleen you drew
Your mouth across her breast as
Trick musicians do.
Plunging grandly out to fall
Upon your face.
Naked-female-baby
In grimace.
With your belly bulging stately
Into space.