Classic Poem

Silently, dawn and dusk
like two sides of a gold coin
reached his throat every day
through a tamarind tree.
Around that time, he was lodging
at a dye house on the second floor and reading Homer
Around that time, he had a coral pipe
with a picture of a pansy.
All the Gallics laughed (Your pipe
is like a girl's letter, or a Byzantine romance novel —
ouuu aeee )
Yet its phosphorescent smoke travels around a cockscomb,
around the goddess's nose and hips.