First the stuffy upholstered smell of the chairs began
To puff a few sighs of dust, and the sticky-varnished
Reek of the cheap worn wood had a verse to scan
About Love and Death and Beauty, fly-spotted and tarnished.
“I never liked her at all!” said a green glass bowl,
And a whiff of anger whitened the broken plaster,
“Her eyes were too big!” cried a smell with paws like a mole.
“She was slinky,” the pinks spoke. “Thin,” creaked a broken castor.
“She was greedy. She never loved him. She powdered her nose.”
Pale-calm as a specter’s gem in the shadow-playtime,