from Epitaphs

Written on a slat of a railway car: If some time someone should find pearls threaded on a blood-red string of silk which, near the throat, runs all the thinner like life’s own path until it’s gone somewhere in a fog and can’t be seen— If someone should find these pearls let him know how—cool, aloof—they lit up the eighteen-year-old, impatient heart of the Paris dancing girl, Marie. Now, dragged through unknown Poland— I’m throwing my pearls through the grate. If they’re found by a young man— let these pearls adorn his girlfriend. If they’re found by a girl— let her wear them; they belong to her. And if they’re found by an old man— let him, for these pearls, recite a prayer.