T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Lunette

By Orrick Johns (1887–1946)

(From “Hedone”; from Black Branches, 1920)

THE WINDOW flames no longer clamber
like gonfanons against the sky,
and faintly blue-green glows the camber
of her thigh.

The febrile radiance left of day	5
creeps through the forest of her passion,
and riant in the dusk I stay
a man of fashion …

Her cigarette, avid of design,
is one still spark by shadow pressed,	10
and like a moon beneath, benign,
glimmers her breast.