The Ugly Old Lady
her hair in metal rows
under a roaring cone,
is modesty itself,
aspires in all humility
just to the diminution
of her ugliness.
She has the secret humble
wish not to detract from all
the sum of a rare trust,
she knows exists elsewhere:
the thing that Helen's glass
took and gave back,
that lifted from some sea
stern Afrodite on her
brittle shelf
