Robert Hayden — Homage to the Empress of the Blues

Because there was a man somewhere in a candystripe silk shirt, gracile and dangerous as a jaguar and because a woman moaned   for him in sixty-watt gloom and mourned him Faithless Love Twotiming Love Oh Love Oh Careless Aggravating Love,     She came out on the stage in yards of pearls, emerging like     a favorite scenic view, flashed her golden smile and sang. Because grey laths began somewhere to show from underneath torn hurdygurdy lithographs of dollfaced in heaven; and because there were those who feared alarming fists of snow on the door and those who feared the riot-squad of statistics,     She came out on the stage in ostrich feathers, beaded satin,     and shone that smile on us and sang.