Clara
AT sixteen she was a potential celebrity
With a distaste for caresses.
She now writes to me from a convent;
Her life is obscure and troubled;
Her second husband will not divorce her;
Her mind is, as ever, uncultivated,
And no issue presents itself.
She does not desire her children,
Or any more children.
Her ambition is vague and indefinite,
She will neither stay in, nor come out.
III
Soirée
UPON learning that the mother wrote verses,
And that the father wrote verses,
And that the youngest son was in a publisher’s office,
And that the friend of the second daughter
was undergoing a novel,
The young American pilgrim
Exclaimed:
“This is a darn’d clever bunch!”
IV
Sketch 48 b. II
AT the age of 27
Its home mail is still opened by its maternal parent
And its office mail may be opened by
its parent of the opposite gender.
It is an officer,
and a gentleman,
and an architect.
V
1
“Nodier raconte ...”
AT a friend of my wife’s there is a photograph,
A faded, pale, brownish photograph,
Of the times when the sleeves were large,
Silk, stiff and large above the lacertus,
That is, the upper arm,
And décolleté....
It is a lady,
She sits at a harp,
Playing,
And by her left foot, in a basket,
Is an infant, aged about 14 months,
The infant beams at the parent,
The parent re-beams at its offspring.
The basket is lined with satin,
There is a satin-like bow on the harp.