CIVILIZED SPRING
His fists smash against the violet air:
the doors of evening must not close,
locking him out! Why, is his youth a beggar,
crippled and blind, or reduced so low
that he should drink spit from the cup
of pity? Snarling, he wipes his feet
on the mocking tongue that carpets the front
of a swank hotel, before the doorman beams
him with a eunuch eye. O.K., beat it!
And he warms his hands with his breath,
then slouches off, his feline hips
rolling smoothly under bluejean pockets.
An expensive whore, desire taunts him
down through the city's bright bazaar,
like the cool white tone of a saxophone
caught in the jewelrich stream of cars.
Shop windows hive the honey on his lips,
the perfume of live mannequins clings,
while towers squat like pyramids
behind a desert moon now green.
Smolders the coal in his chest, burns
the hole in his shoe through the pavement,
as he turns up alleys where rattling cans
overflow their Nile. Thickly, he quickens
his course, begins to run ... till breathless
and unspent, he whirls and twists and crashes
beyond the guarded walls, the harem tents
of night ... a purple fugitive, who gasps.