Dorothy Parker
August
When my eyes are weeds
And my lips are petals, spinning
Down the wind that has beginning
Where the crumpled beeches start
In a fringe of salty reeds
When my arms are elder-bushes
And the rangy lilac pushes
Upward, upward through my heart

Summer, do your worst!
Light your tinsel moon, and call on
Your performing stars to fall on
Headlong through your paper sky
Nevermore shall I be cursed
By a flushed and amorous slattern
With her dusty laces' pattern
Trailing, as she straggles by