Next to my office where I edit poems ("Can poems be edited?") there is the Chicago Models club. All day the girls stroll past my door where I am editing poems, behind my head a signed photograph of Rupert Brooke, handsomer than any movie star. I edit, keeping one eye peeled for models, straining my ears to hear what they say. In there they photograph the girls on the bamboo furniture, glossies for the pulsing facades of night spots. One day the manager brings me flowers, a huge and damaged bouquet: hurt gladiolas, overly open roses, long-leaping ferns (least hurt), and bruised carnations. I accept the gift, remainder of last night's opening (where?), debut of lower-class blondes. I distribute the flowers in the other poetry rooms, too formal-looking for our disarray.
Now after every model's bow to the footlights the manager brings more flowers, hurt gladiolas, overly open roses, long-leaping ferns, and bruised carnations. I edit poems to the click of sharp high heels, flanked by the swords of lavendar debut, whiffing the cinnamon of crepe-paper-pink carnations of the bruised and lower-class blondes.
Behind me rears my wall of books, most formidable of himan barriers. No flower depresses me like the iris but these I have a fondness for. They bring stale memories ver the threshold of the street. They bring the night of cloth palm trees and soft plastic leopard charis, night of sticky drinks, the shining rhinestone hour in the dark-blue mirror, the peroxide chat of models and photogenic morn.
Today the manager brings all gladioli. A few rose petals lie in the corridor. The mail is heavy this morning.
