Female Author

All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world: Favored (while suddenly the rains begin Beyond the window) she lies on cushions curled And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin. Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms Where polished higboys whisper creaking curses And hothouse roses shed immortal 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 metaphor, retreats From gray child faces crying in the streets.