When the one weary hope is past
Here is the sole escape,
The little postern in the house of breath
Where pallid fugitives keep tryst with death.
All this the drug clerk knows and there he stands,
Young and dapper and debonair ...
He rests a pair of slender hands,
Much manicured, upon the counter there
And speaks: “No, we don’t carry no pomade,
We only cater to the high-class trade.”