* * * * *
I saw a drunkard laughing in a tavern,
His cup was tilted and the wine spilt crimson on the sprawled arms and distracted hair of a woman fallen asleep,
I watched him there and wondered
If ever the bubbling goblins of wine had whispered him life's secret.
But he raised the cup of his carousals and gazed at emptiness,
Toasting some wild, irreverent dream,
Some flame-red salamander pirouetting among the dead waste ashes of time—
And I knew that he had found only the secrets of sleep....
* * * * *