DRUNK with the whiffs of steak in passage-ways,
With many a genial bar and kindly scene
Of sickly shrimps illumined by the rays
Of rose acetylene,
He wandered through the streets with empty maw;
And winter nights are raw.
And through a steaming window he could see
A saw-dust restaurant; a woman there
Was seated on an ancient lecher’s knee
With hat askew and hair
In blondine-tendrils falling Flora-wise
Over her blinking eyes.
Her lips like currants glistened and her arms
Sticky with strange narcotics, downy-white.
The elder pinched them, sucking in their charms
With pudgy fingers tight,
And of a sudden pealed behind her scarf
A clear, metallic laugh.
The youth outside relit his cigarette—
In silence longed for love articulate,
But he could watch no longer, for the sweat
Trickled a-down his pate
And stung his eyes; and what could be attained
When wages all were drained?