Manners by Maxwell Bodenheim — Read

/ Gingerly, the poets sit. / Gingerly, they spend / The adjectives of dribbling flatteries, / With here and there a laceration / Feeding on the poison of a smile. / In the home of the poet-host / That bears the slants of a commonplace, / Eagerly distributed -- / The accepted lyrical note -- / The poets sit. / The poets drink much wine / And tug a little at their garments, / Weighing the advantages of disrobing. / (It is necessary to call them "poets" / Since, according to custom, / Titles are generously given to the attempt.) / Sirona, cousin of the poet-host, / Munches at the feast of words. / She endeavors to convince herself / That her hunger has become an illusion. / The poets, capitulating to wine, / Leave their birds and twilights, / Their trees and cattle at evening, / And study Sirona's body -- / Their manacled hands still joined / By the last half-broken link.

/ Beneath her ill-fitting worship / Young Sirona fears / That the poets are wordy animals / Circled by brocaded corsets. / Sirona, if you stood on your head / Now, and waved the brave plan of your legs, / Undisturbed by cloth, / The poets would be convinced / That you were either insane or angling. / But an exceptional poet, / Never present at these parties, / Would compliment your vigour / And scoff at the vain deceptions of privacy. / Vulgarity, Sirona, is often a word / Invented by certain men to defend / Their disdain for other men, who chuckle / At the skulking tyrannies of fashion. / Few men, Sirona, dare to become / Completely vulgar, but many / Nibble at the fringes.