Why do you subdue yourself in golds and purples?
Why do you dim yourself with folded silks?
Do you not see that I can buy brocades in any draper’ s shop,
And that I am choked in the twilight of all these colors.
How pale you would be, and startling —
How quiet;
But your curves would spring upward
Like a clear jet of flung water,
You would quiver like a shot-up spray of water,

this little phase
keeps on the same way
without variety
jazz and compromise
making blue snow grow at the windows
mohair fumes clog my throat like cats
flames pounce without burning
shadows gather in parkas at my back
turn so i can see your face
stand where i can see you man
should someone phone
i will tell whoever it is
i cannot escape this night
even saxophones do not dry
light the brown sweat
terror in white doorways
under multicolored covers
there is no way to sleep

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball.
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over — there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,

Rudolph Reed was oaken.
His wife was oaken too.
And his two good girls and his good little man
Oakened as they grew.

“I am not hungry for berries.
I am not hungry for bread.
But hungry hungry for a house
Where at night a man in bed

” May never hear the plaster
Stir as if in pain.
May never hear the roaches
Falling like fat rain.