DAME OCUPACYON AMONG THE LYMPHOCYTES
The Goddess of Fame, according to Skelton’s Garland of Laurell, employs a registrar called Dame Ocupacyon; when one brings her a poem, it is she who decides whether to enrol it in the public records. “Dressed in Susan-coloured satins” will not pass for scrutiny. Dame Ocupacyon knows many Susans. - Robert Graves
It’s not the Susan-color of your hair,
for auburn, black or mouse or honey-color
can be arranged. Rather it is your work,
your search when I would feed among the lilies.
Your lymphocytes in concanavalins,
the small change of your daytime world and mine,
that are not plectra for Apollo’s lute,
are not transformed upon the blue guitar.
And yet these cells and their small mitogens
whose genome is your work, your house, your child,
are what you are and what I know of you,
coursing the chambers of your voyeur’s heart.