The engines of the carnival, Sosthène,
Become the scavengers of pestilence,
And bear to smouldering necropolis
The revelers, the carrion alike.
The women of the balconies grow old,
Or were, perhaps, transvestites from the first.
One does not care.
The swarthy torcheliers
In double file light us toward sepulture,
And are themselves become such images
As on our tombs survive to mock our ashes.
Marabout, Mulatto, Octoroon,
They vaunt unquestioningly into time
The transitory kinships of the flesh.
A rising gale divides their lifted fires;
The blown confetti whitens into rain;
Papier-mâché disintegrates in wind.
Égalité (the little marmoset)
Trembles in his Moroccan livery.
Incompetence closes around the chefs.
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