We had decided with Cocteau

the difference between a cigarette holder

    and cigarette case,

the pleasure of a lorgnette over spectacles,

    of a fortnight over

two weeks, of a spiral over graduated stairs,

    of the frisson of crying

like pouty boys, and of the way to walk a lobster

    on a leash: drag it,

its exoskeleton rapping on the cobbles

    through the rabble

of Montparnasse, as if lugging luggage.

    We did what could not

gain us a week of rent or even a plate of fish,

    yet we managed to eat

sickening amounts, to hate on our patroness,

    the Princess de Polignac,

though, and I am sorry, she had bought us wine.

    Once, in the chamber

before an evening concert, I hid a sack of bees

    in the white baby grand,

and when ball-gowned Polignac raised the leaf

    they swarmed through the strings

to the chandelier and the Princess saw a living sun

    and felt a little less dreary

and a little less proud of being bored.