With the skirt of cotton and the yellow shawl
And the eyes of the black sea
Without money or talent, and yet with enough
From the black hair which she wore loose
Up to
the even more black toes:
That was Hanna Cash, my child
Who soaped the
Gentlemen
She came with the wind and she went with the wind
That sweeps through the savannahs
And she had no shoes and she also had no shirt
And she did not know any charols
She was
swept into the large city like a cat,
A small grey cat clamped between wood
Between dead bodies in the black channels.
She washed the glasses of absinthe
But never herself
And
yet must Hanna Cash, my child
Also have been clean
And one night she went into the seamens’ pub
With the eyes of the black lakes
And she met Jack Kent with the mole hair
Jack-the-Knife
from the seamens’ pub
And he let her go with him
And when crude Kent
Scratched himself and gave her a wink
Then
Hanna Cash, my child
Felt the look up to her toe.
