Rich People in Paintings,

moustached, bejeweled, or bejowled,

peer from the walls. A pinched cigarette

burns and smoke threads the afternoon.

No calling cards await on a silver tray

& being painted bores them too:

Men in tennis whites or one whose hand

weights the globed newel post

or home from the hunt in pink coat

and canary vest, riding crop clutched

in a gloved hand—the waiting day

a bright gleam on his black boots.

Behind him, the gilt frame of another scene

and a casement window that must open

on pedigreed pets, horses, and markets

waiting to be mastered. What will he mount

next? Somewhere a sailboat creaks against

a dock or the open eye of a canoe is beached

at the edge of a pond still as the hopelessly

lazy Mlle G, shoulders chalky with powder,

posed in the palm court, where bulbs break

into bloom, the white throats of daffodils

frilled as lace that lines her cuffs

while she dreams of chapel bells and school,

back bay clubs, an island braceleted

by seas, and pygmy deer they shot

and stuffed one season. Across from her,

a young mistress of the breakfast nook

peels an impossible sun. The rind unfurls

on the tablecloth’s vast winter, a snowfield

for two more oranges and a dish of melon

sliced to smiles. Upstairs, unpainted spaniels

loll that were bred to fill the space a body

makes, and a clamshell case closes on its string

of pearls. Let those who owned the world

sneer or sigh. Now they’re simply owned.