Page:Al Que Quiere.djvu/84

 No questions—all stood patiently, Dominated by one idea: something That carried them as they are always wanting to be carried, ‘But what is it,’ I asked those nearest me, ‘This thing heretofore unobtainable That they seem so clever to have put on now!’

“Why since I have failed them can it be any- thing but their own brood?” Can it be anything but brutality? On that at least they re united! That at least Is their bean soup, their calm bread and a few luxuries!

“But in me, more sensitive, marvelous old queen It sank deep into the blood, that I rose upon The tense air enjoying the dusty fight! Heavy drink were the low, sloping foreheads The flat skulls with the unkempt black or blond hair, The ugly legs of the young girls, pistons Too powerful for delicacy! The women's wrists, the men's arms, red Used to heat and cold, to toss quartered beeves And barrels, and milk-cans, and crates of fruit!

“Faces all knotted up like burls on oaks, Grasping, fox-snouted, thick-lipped, Sagging breasts and protruding stomachs, Rasping voices, filthy habits with the hands.