A Manikin
MENKE KATZ
A manikin in a show window — a mocked bride,
deprived of sorrow, condemned to smile till doomsday.
Children on winged horses of a carousel ride
like little folk of yesterday to her wedding day.
Her wedding gown of mournful white, a starry shroud.
The bridal train, the tail of a longing mermaid.
Each ray, a mirror smashed by the evening crowds.
The show window is a dazzling lake, her heart bait.
The day is rushed into shreds, crushed under tired feet.
The sun, a squeezed lemon hugged to death in subways.
The mermaid tossed through flame and steel, from street to street,
on glorious Fifth Avenue, through skulked byways.
My bride, in the twilight trance, before her last dance.
And I, self-doomed, drunk with death, fall in her fire dance.
deprived of sorrow, condemned to smile till doomsday.
Children on winged horses of a carousel ride
like little folk of yesterday to her wedding day.
Her wedding gown of mournful white, a starry shroud.
The bridal train, the tail of a longing mermaid.
Each ray, a mirror smashed by the evening crowds.
The show window is a dazzling lake, her heart bait.
The day is rushed into shreds, crushed under tired feet.
The sun, a squeezed lemon hugged to death in subways.
The mermaid tossed through flame and steel, from street to street,
on glorious Fifth Avenue, through skulked byways.
My bride, in the twilight trance, before her last dance.
And I, self-doomed, drunk with death, fall in her fire dance.