TO A BABY, REACHING FOR THE SMOKE
For Janet
Your gray eyes dance with ecstasy,
A cooing chuckle lifts and purls,
And rose-soft fingers laughingly
Grope, as the slow smoke coils and curls.
A cooing chuckle lifts and purls,
And rose-soft fingers laughingly
Grope, as the slow smoke coils and curls.
Out of my pipe, a spiral mist
You reach and close on, gay with hope
That in your tiny tight-locked fist
It will stay captive. . . . Still you grope,
You reach and close on, gay with hope
That in your tiny tight-locked fist
It will stay captive. . . . Still you grope,
And still it slips, dissolves, eludes
To feathery nothingness—and a new
Pillar of grayness slowly broods
Up from the pipe's bowl, teasing you.
To feathery nothingness—and a new
Pillar of grayness slowly broods
Up from the pipe's bowl, teasing you.
If once those rose-soft fingers turn
And find a solid goal, they gain
Only the soiling pipe, to burn
With reddening memories of pain. . . .
And find a solid goal, they gain
Only the soiling pipe, to burn
With reddening memories of pain. . . .
Endlessly so we strain and grope
To reach some coiling, curling wraith
To reach some coiling, curling wraith
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