The Critic Who

Congratulates Herself

         for Helen

 

To bring with you “stupidities of youth”

is all our wandering angel misapplies.

He’s got still, first, “portmanteau”

and, then, his yellow hair.

He’s more than looks

and knows it, and what he is

is what we care.

                           He measures out

his clothes and stacks them neatly

on a chair.

                  But cannot change his hair,

though in his syntax he can disallow

insurance with blank customs

of white cabins on a beach.

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