VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE HARTFORD ACCIDENT & INDEMNITY CO.,
MEET IN THE COURSE OF BUSINESS
Exchanging gentle grips, the men retire,
prologued by courteous bumbling at the door -
retreat to where a rare room deep exists
on an odd floor, subtly carpeted. Here walls
wear charts like checkered vests and blotters ape
the green of cricket fields. Glass multiplies
the pausing men to twice infinity.
An inkstand of blue marble has been carven;
no young girl's wrist is more discreetly veined.
An office boy misplaced and slack intrudes,
apologizes speaking without commas
"Oh sorry sirs I thought" which signifies
what well-meant wimbly wambly stuff it is
we seem to be made of. Beyond the room,
the gander sun's pure rhetoric ferments
imbroglios of bloom. The stone is so.
The pair confer in murmurings, with words
select and Sunday-soft. No more is known,
but rumor goes that as they hatched the deal,
vistas of lilac weighted their shrewd lids.
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