The Lime Avenue

With a crunching of gravel and flapping upon it
Of scarlet soutanes, down an alley of limes,
Where the tree-boles, as evenly distanced as rhymes,

Cut their long promenade into bars like a sonnet,

Two cardinals whispering under the trees,
Discussing the doctor's last news of the Pope,
And artfully hiding an indiscreet hope

With a long pinch of snuff and its consequent sneeze.

Lowsy eyes, pendant jowls, immense purple-sashed waist,
Soft labial words dripping out on the taste

Of a greedy ambition. The other -- succinct,

Lips of wire, and face all one cold, chiselled piece,

Pronouncing his bribe with each word quite distinct:
"To your connoisseur's palate I offer my niece."

Pope's arms in a moss-confused lozenge, an ache

Of slow wind, and the whine of a gardener's rake.