Female Author

All day she plays chess with the bones of the world: Favored (while suddenly the rains begin Beyond the window) she lies on cushoins curled And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin.

Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms Where the polished highboys whisper creaking curses And hothouse roses shed immoral blooms.

The garnets on her fingers twinkle quick And blood reflects across the manuscript; She muses on the odor, sweet and sick, Of festering gardenias in a crypt,

And lost in subtle mataphor, retreats From gray child faces crying in the streets.