"The petals of tenderness in them..."

Eastward the city with scarcely even a murmur

          turns in the soft dusk,

          the lights of it blur,

          the delicate spires are unequal

as though the emollient dusk had begun to dissolve them...

          And the soft air-breathers,

their soft bosoms rising and falling as ferns under water

responding to some impalpably soft pressure,

          turn with the city, too.

          The petals of tenderness in them,

their tentative ways of feeling, not quite reaching out

but ever so gently half reaching out and withdrawing,

withdrawing to where their feminine star is withdrawing,

the planet that turns with them,

          faithfully always and softly...

From "The Soft City" by Tennessee Williams

Marseille at Dusk, Andre Maglione (1838-1923)