Another smoky afternoon
With darkened eyes in corner rooms
Predictably, you and I
Scented Darjeeling
Slightly chipped china cups
The fog of talk
Complacent breasts
Rise and fall
In brittle laughs
And at your shoulder greybeard strikes
Anew a flaming match
And on the wall a poster flaps.
And every table owes a bill
And every chair has had its day
These lanterns cast a half life glow
Now the ching of brass ringed tills
Fill coffers with their fleeting vows 

And you ask me how I pass my time,
Your coral rings astrological—
These lanterns swing like
Pendulums,
I say
And with their implacable sway
They push my days into
The night. 

And now you look the other way.