I slam the door and wonder, “Will he say
‘The unemployed, Sir,’ on the Judgment Day?”
L’Impératrice des Pagodes
A POOR, drab slattern washed a greasy plate
Daubed and besmeared with crumbs and margarine,
She had small time to think of tinsel Fate
And yet she sang a Fate that might have been.
When she, the Queen of distant Bangalore,