The Urban Nile

An infatuated man is on a steam ship.
He shaves with water that’s as cold
As the blood of a woman
Turned to stone in ancient Greece.

Pining was his porter, who commented
That the night was dottled with B-movie tears.
An old Hollywood temptress pretended to faint
Under the lead crystal chandelier by the busboy lockers.

The man wrote his love letters on toilet paper
With a pencil sharpened with Death’s scathe.
The whole human affair, he scribbled,
With its wake as long as the Nile,

With its chicken wire trees and cotton clouds,
Its subplots and pointless twists, plays to an empty
Audience in a theater in some forgotten burg
With its cemetery gate rattling in the wind.