Classic Poem

" SHALL we come back? " the gamblers asked.
" If you want to, if you feel that way, " the answer.

And they must have wanted to,
they must have felt that way;
for they came back,
hats pulled down over their eyes
as though the rain or the policemen
or the shadows of a sneaking scar-face Nemesis
followed their tracks and hunted them down.

" What was the clean-up? Let's see the rakeoff, "
somebody asked them, looking into their eyes
far under the pulled-down hat rims;
and their eyes had only the laugh of the rain in them,
lights of escape from a sneaking scar-face Nemesis
hunting their tracks, hunting them down.

Anvils, pincers, mosquitoes, anguish, raspberries,
steaks and gravy, remorse, ragtime, slang,
a woman's looking-glass to be held in the hand
for looking at the face and the face make-up,
blackwing birds fitted onto slits
of the sunsets they were flying into,
bitter green waters, clear running waters,
standing pools ringing the changes
of all the triangles of the equinoxes of the sky,
and a woman's slipper
with a tarnished buckle,
a tarnished Chinese silver buckle.
The gamblers snatched their hats off babbling,
" Some layout — take your pick, kid. "

And their eyes had yet in them
the laugh of the rain
and the lights of their getaway
from a sneaking scar-face Nemesis.