Again she's on the prowl.
See the whisper of a whisker
above her lip, the monocle's claw
tigering her eye, the silk silence
waistcoating her hips -- each button a fang
on which a lover may catch.
Which lipsticked voice will catch
mid-croon as she prowls
in tonight? Which saxophonic fang
will she blunt with a whisker
of smoke into silence?
Which brick wall will shy from her claw,
her moonbeam-sharpened claw?
And from what sorry bedbug did she catch
this Charleston influenza? Even in silence
her black brogued foot will tap and prowl
the dancefloor, whiskering
out some newfangled
rhythm as makeshift as her paycheck. Fanged
with a crisp deck, her lobster-claw
Queen of Hearts plays coquette with a whiskered
Joker. But watch her catch
a flapper by the waist and prowl
a gloved hand through that bobbed blond hair in silence:
how much such silence
speaks! Love with its million fangs
shadows her into each speakeasy. Wherever she prowls,
her swaggering mug bears Cupid's claw
marks -- it's not just lust that catches
this poor cat by the whiskers.
Oh America, you've singed many a whisker.
Sauntering home in streetlamped silence
she whistles an old-country catch
long ribboned to bits by memory's fang
and history's claw.
Dawn's on the prowl.