She Beggar

She riddened herself Into a shaft of night, Her lips ironed into a frozen grin By the cold. Her mossy stockings gaped At the heels, And a jersey dripped about her; A loose cobweb of wound red wool. Her creak;as if the final From a strangled heart. Frost waxed fingers tipped a candle As if it was graven from a stick of sulfur, While one leg Desperately kneaded a dead other. Her lips smeared mist And stirred as if to melt. "Buy the candle," she said, Offering it dryly Like the rosary of a beggar's religion. If only the pocket of the heart Was of worldly worth, Then a man starved and shoeless Would be a nugget well polished for hell. But the wings of this tide Beat the hapless way, And a pout such as yours May forever be suppled with hay.