Over the rim of the glass 
Containing a good martini with a twist 
I eye her bosom and consider a pass, 
              Certain we’d not be missed 

              In the general hubbub. 
Her lips, which I forgot to say, are superb, 
Never stop babbling once (Aye, there’s the rub 
              But who would want to curb 

              Such delicious, artful flattery? 
It seems she adores my work, the distinguished grey 
Of my hair. I muse on the salt and battery 
              Of the sexual clinch, and say 

              Something terse and gruff 
About the marked disparity in our ages. 
She looks like twenty-three, though eager enough. 
              As for the famous wages 

              Of sin, she can’t have attained 
Even to union scale, though you never can tell. 
Her waist is slender and suggestively chained, 
              All things are going well. 

              The martini does its job, 
God bless it, seeping down to the dark old id. 
(“Is there no cradle, Sir, you would not rob?” 
              Says ego, but the lid 

              Is off. The word is Strike 
While the iron’s hot.) And now, ingenuous and gay, 
She is asking me about what I was like 
              At twenty. (Twenty, eh?) 

              You wouldn’t have liked me then, 
I answer, looking carefully into her eyes. 
I was shy, withdrawn, awkward, one of those men 
              That girls seemed to despise, 

              Moody and self-obsessed, 
Unhappy, defiant, with guilty dreams galore, 
Full of ill-natured pride, an unconfessed 
              Snob and a thorough bore. 

              Her smile is meant to convey 
How changed or modest I am, I can’t tell which, 
When I suddenly hear someone close to me say, 
              “You lousy son-of-a-bitch!” 

              A young man’s voice, by the sound, 
Coming, it seems, from the twist in the martini. 
“You arrogant, elderly letch, you broken-down 
              Brother of Apeneck Sweeney! 

              Thought I was buried for good 
Under six thick feet of mindless self-regard? 
Dance on my grave, would you, you galliard stud, 
              Silenus in leotard? 

              Well, summon me you did, 
And I come unwillingly, like Samuel’s ghost. 
‘All things shall be revealed that have been hid.’ 
              There’s something for you to toast! 

              You only got where you are 
By standing upon my ectoplasmic shoulders, 
And wherever that is may not be so high or far 
              In the eyes of some beholders. 

              Take, for example, me. 
I have sat alone in the dark, accomplishing little, 
And worth no more to myself, in pride and fee, 
              Than a cup of luke-warm spittle. 

              But honest about it, withal . . .” 
(“Withal,” forsooth!) “Please not to interrupt. 
And the lovelies went by, ‘the long and the short and the tall,’ 
              Hankered for, but untupped. 

              Bloody monastic it was. 
A neurotic mixture of self-denial and fear; 
The verse halting, the cataleptic pause, 
              No sensible pain, no tear, 

              But an interior drip 
As from an ulcer, where, in the humid deep 
Center of myself, I would scratch and grip 
              The wet walls of the keep, 

              Or lie on my back and smell 
From the corners the sharp, ammoniac, urine stink. 
‘No light, but rather darkness visible.’ 
              And plenty of time to think. 

              In that thick, fetid air 
I talked to myself in giddy recitative: 
‘I have been studying how I may compare 
              This prison where I live 

              Unto the world . . .’ I learned 
Little, and was awarded no degrees. 
Yet all that sunken hideousness earned 
              Your negligence and ease. 

              Nor was it wholly sick, 
Having procured you a certain modest fame; 
A devotion, rather, a grim device to stick 
              To something I could not name.” 

              Meanwhile, she babbles on 
About men, or whatever, and the juniper juice 
Shuts up at last, having sung, I trust, like a swan. 
              Still given to self-abuse! 

              Better get out of here; 
If he opens his trap again it could get much worse. 
I touch her elbow, and, leaning toward her ear, 
              Tell her to find her purse.