The threewomen who all walked
In the same dress
And it had falling ferns on it
Skipped parallel
To the progress
Of Giovanni Franchi
Giovanni Franchi’s wrists flicked
Flickeringly as he flacked them
His wrists explained things
Infectiously by way of his adolescence
His adolescence was all there was of him
Whatever was left was rather awkward
His adolescence tuned to the tops of trees
Descended to the fallacious nobility
Of his first pair of trousers
They were tubularflapped friezily
The color of coppered mustard
What matter
Were they not the first
No others could ever be the first again
The ferns on the flounces of the threewomen
Began fading as she thought of it
Tea table problems for insane asylyms
Are démodé
Démodé
Allow us to rely on our instincts
The threewomen was composed of three instincts
Each sniffing divergently directed draughts
The first instinct first again (may
Renascent gods save us from the enigmatic
Penetralia of Firstness)
Was to be faithful to a man first
The second to be loyal to herself first
She would have to find which self first
The third which might as well have been first
Was to find out how many toes the
Philosopher Giovanni Bapini had first
Giovanni Franchi hooligan-faced and latin-born
You imagine what he looked like
Looked as nearly as he could as the
Philosopher looked
His articulations were excellent
Still where Giovanni Bapini was cymophanous
Giovanni Franchi was merely pale
He scuttled winsomely
To its distribution from a puffer
For the declaration of War
His acolytian sincerity
The sensitive down among his freckles
Fell in with the patriotic souls of flags
red white and green flagsfillipping piazzas
When the “National Idea” arrived on the Milan Express
Continually cutting off an angle from Paschkowski’s
Through plate-glass swingings
To look as busy bodily
As the philosopher’s brain was
As Giovanni Bapini importuned mobs
From monumental gums
To the sparky detritus
From the hurried cigarette
Of his disciple
Whose papa and mama kept a trattoria
Audaciously squatting right opposite the Pitti Palace
The Pitti Palace however stolidcould hardly help noticing
Being an aristocrat it went on looking
As plainly piled up as ever
The Pitti Palace has never been known to mention the trattoria
Or mention Giovanni Franchi
Sitting in it
At a book
It could not see from that distance
Giovanni watching the munchers supporting his parents
With an eye
On assuring himself
Of their sufficient impression
By erudition
He was so young
That explains so much
No book ever explained what to be young is
But they look so much more important for that
Giovanni was in continuous ecstacy
Induced by the imposing look of them
When Giovanni Bapini spoke of them
He could not tell
How completely more precious
Would be such knowledge
As how many toes the philosopher Giovanni Bapini had
Now the threewomen
For pity’s sake
Let us think of her as she to save time
Seeing the minor Giovanni
Sitting at the major Giovanni’s feet
Made sure he must be counting his toes
All to the contrary he was picking the philosopher’s brains
happy in the security that when he had done
He would still be youthful enough to sort out his own
He listened at the elder’s lips
That taught him of earthquakes and
Of women—
His manners were abominable
He would kill a woman
Quite inconspicuously it is true
And neglect to attend her funeral
I mean the older man
And what he told
Giovanni Franchi
About these pernicious persons
Was so extremely good for him
It entirely spoilt his first love-affair
To such an extent it never came off
We have read of
Trattoria meaning eating house.
Piazzas or squares
The Pitti Palace enormous
And Paschkowski’sfor beer
All are in Firenze
Firenze is Florence
Some think it is a woman with flowers in her hair
But NO it is a city with stones on the streets
Giovanni Bapini often said
Everybody in Firenze knows me
And everybody did
Excepting—That isshe didn’t
She never knew what he was
Or how he was himself
Yet she uniquely was the one
To speculateupon the number of his toes
The days growing longer
Fulfilling her of curiousity
She made a moth’s net
Of metaphor and miracles
And on the incandescent breath of civilizations
She chased by moon-and-morn light
Philosopher’s toes
As virginalas had he never worn them
Clear of ‘white marks means money’
All quicks and cores
They fluttered to her fantasy
Fell into her lap
While she gathered her ferny flounces about them
They inappropriately passed
But Giovanni Franchi was there
He almost winked it at her
That he was there
His eyes were intrepid with phantom secrets
The Philosopher had flung to him
And as she tripped by him
She guessedthese all
All but the number of those toes
She made diurnal pilgrimage
To the trattoria
To eat
Trout that might have been trained for circuses
If minarets grew in miniature whirlpools
And mayonnaise that helped her to forget
That what is underneath need never matter
She put all minor riddles out of her
Such as
What was the under-cover of Franchi’s book
Telling to the plaid pattern of the tablecloth
Too shy to interrogate
She sent ambassadors
To the disciple
They returned
Oh rats
Quite manifest that Giovanni Franchi
Some semieffigy
Damned by scholiums
Knew no morehow many toes—
ThanGiovanni Bapini knew himself
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