Part ravishing beauty, part sofa, in the vernacular-Sophie,
after hours filling the street whose windows are partly faces
with the clatter of her six heels (after all, a catastrophe
is something that always ogles the guise’s a lull refuses),
is rushing to a rendezvous. Love consists of tulle, horsehair,
blood, bolsters, cushions, springs, happiness, births galore.
Two-thirds a caring male, one-third a race car—Cary
for short—greets her joyfully with his idling roar
and whisks her off to a theater. Every thigh, from the age of swaddles,
shows the craving of muscles for furniture, or the antics
of mahogany armoires whose panels, in turn, show a subtle
yen for two-thirds, full-face, profiles anxious
for a slap. Whisks her off to a theater in whose murkiness—perspiring,
                                                                                                          panting,
running each other over, kneading veneer with tire—
they enjoy off and on a drama about the life of puppets

which is what we were, frankly, in our era.