In an apartment above a brothel
In a narrow Alexandrian street,
A middle-aged man lights a candle
In the twilight.
The walls are green, red and mauve.
Tonight, quite possibly,
He will venture out to the usual place
And find a brief companion-
One of those penniless busboys
Who will sell their bodies for a few coins.
Beauty and death divide the hours.
He knows as well as anyone
What failure means;
And how all things end.
But in history, as in life,
There are moments, few, but precious,
When revelation almost cancels out despair.
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