  Bed-room, you have earned The sympathy of dirt, And bear upon your air Malevolent and thwarted Essences of men. Many contorters of bellies Have stirred an urgent travesty Shielded by your greasy dusk, And hearts have found upon your couch A brief, delicious insult. Cheap room within a lodging-house, You are not merely space For the coronation of flesh, And your odorous bed-quilts Need not only provoke The casual jeering of thought. II Woman and her master Close the door too quietly. With a mien of slinking Insecurity, the woman turns Within the dangling darkness of the room And mumbles orders to her man. Anticipation and disgust Rout each other upon her face. Then the gas-light brings Its feeble understanding to the room. Woman and man slump down Within the chairs and regard The tired amens of their feet. For a time weariness Banishes the theatrical Divisions of masculine and feminine, Calls to the untrue drama. The man demands, with practised expectation, Money squeezed from an automatic night; Curses at the smallness of the sum, And cuffs his woman without intensity, Desiring only an excuse For the slowness of his mind. She is not a composition Waiting for its orchestra of pain: His fists can merely give An inexpensive spice To the apathy within her. Soon the man and woman laugh, To kill an inner jumble of sounds Which they cannot separate— Nightly complaint of their souls. He pinches one of her cheeks, Like an Emperor deigning To test the softness of a bauble, And she finds within his fingers An endurable compliment. When morning light exposes Each deficiency within the room, Man and woman open their eyes. Hallucination of fire No longer streams over the moving screens. Woman and her man Stare, with disapproval, at the walls, And their souls become Querulous captives almost gaining lips. Then emotional habits Revive the earthly hoax. Rising from the bed, Man and woman use their voices Reassuringly. |
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