The Drug Clerk

The drug clerk stands behind the counter Young and dapper and debonair.... Before him burn the great unwinking lights The hectic stars of city nights, Red as hell's pit, green as a mermaid's hair. A queer half-acrid smell is in the air. Behind him on the shelves in ordered rows With strange, abbreviated names Dwell half the facts of life. That young man knows, Bottled and boxed and powdered here, Dumb tragedies, deceptions, secret shames, And comedy and fear. Sleep slumbers here, like a great quiet sea Shrunk to this bottle's compass; sleep that brings Sweet respite from the teeth of pain To those poor tossing things That the white nurses watch so thoughtfully. And here again Dwell the shy souls of Maytime flowers That shall make sweeter still those poignant hours When wide-eyed youth looks on the face of love. And, for those others who have found too late The bitter fruits thereof, Here are cosmetics, powders, paints,—the arts That hunted women use to hunt again With scented flesh for bait. And here is comfort for the hearts Of sucking babes in their first teething pain. Here dwells the substance of huge fervid dreams, Fantastic, many-colored, shot with gleams Of ecstasy and madness, that shall come To some pale, twitching sleeper in a bunk. And here is courage, cheaply bought To cure a blue sick funk, And dearly paid for in the final sum. Here in this powdered fly is caught Desire more ravishing than Tarquin's.... And at last When the one weary hope is past Here is the sole escape, The little postern in the house of breath Where pallid fugitives keep tryst with death. All this the drug clerk knows and there he stands, Young and dapper and debonair.... He rests a pair of slender hands, Much manicured, upon the counter there And speaks: "No, we don't carry no pomade, We only cater to the high-class trade."