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ERNEST AUGUSTUS, IN HIS STUDY
At the far end of the Persian carpet (flowers
floating on a pond of cream in a lawn
of orange moss in a moat of cream
with flowers floating in it) sits the Duke.
His tea waits at his elbow. His pink,
white-whiskered silhouette glows
against the shadowed wall of mezzotints behind
the door. And the door, a double door,
is open to a room beyond, Persian
carpeted, with a double door open to a room
beyond, in which there is a window
no bigger than a postage stamp
but blank with sky. This afternoon the Duke
is wearing the narrow boots and royal-
blue uniform of the Hussars
of the Guard; he is wearing also his gold-rimmed
reading glasses. A fern of steam coils
from his Meissen tea cup. His belly
rumbles. The sunlight quivers over fields
of frosted stubble and broken-necked
artichokes, over toppled walls,
over the drained lake. He tugs the tasseled
bell-pull. And presently, with a click
of heels and a swish of black
satin, the parlourmaid sways, wasp waisted,
through the patch of light that is
no bigger than his head.
   
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