I swear—the only three cards
I'm willing
to plunk down anymore
at the madcap green
table where all
of the boldest
and longest-
toothed gamblers in rumpled-
up tuxes are gathered—
each make the following
milkywhite faces—
weak
lean
and leery.
Brash!—
was a feckless
and deplorable
and beautiful bold forth kind
I once
would have trembled—like a fiend
to throw down;
but that—was before
I first got
a little—
too used
to the constant
and excruciating-
ly great pangs
of hunger—and accordingly
shrank down
in form
and in stature—in fierce hunched protection
of that palefaced
and
softboned
and
stark-raving carcass-
about-town—
of a
stupid little child
of an idea—
that I can't just unhave now.
