Very slowly he sipped his tea
not shifting his glance from the thick
double spaced printing he read with his jeweller's eye

Engrossed in his corner
he passed onto the other inhabitants of the room
a scrawled insularity of time and space

For both passed him by with the speed of light
not unlike the flow of substance, however varied
into that lysergic entity known as the black hole

He was hardly ugly for his time
and conversation was certainly not lost on him
Drastic measures were called for
and as in antiquity the lonely man
was blessed with wisdom to the point of desperation

But there in his corner
developing around him like a sun
was a climate of such rare beauty
that sight and sound could no longer
be considered sufficient food for the senses

And he had begun to notice
as his hearing failed, that mind and matter
were in no way connected to one other
as if in fact the one could not propose and prove
its erotic existence in terms of the other

"What does this word mean? "
he enquired of the solemn waiter hopefully
"; Nothing for desert sir"
came the reply, "perhaps a cocktail, demitasse
or a herbal essence, it helps the breathing
you know sometimes"; . "The bill, if you don't mind"
quickly he shot back

And as the patter of the feet faded in the room
for he barely heard them now
his eye slowly began to close
and by the time he emerged
on the sunny street he was forced to rely
entirely on the other eye for help
but happily it continued its many functions
blinking gently for lubrication, and registering images
It was rush hour, in Hawaii only 10am

So, turning into his street, he stopped at the drug store
and bought an eye patch
that soon covered the reluctant eye

Climbing the stairs he pondered what to do next
he would call a doctor and have tests made
eat nourishing food and if necessary consent to surgery
the last resort of the gambling man

And at 1am he awoke from a dream
and after fumbling his way in the obolescent light
of his room he peered into the rusty veins
of his mirror and lifted away the patch
What he saw astonished him
Where once was tremulous tissue
and membrane was now a follicle
and perfectly formed vagina with vulva
overgrown and mysterious, unrevealing
and still to the untrained eye

But in the deep dark recesses of that sticky occlusion
lay the unclosing watchful eye of disgust
in its closing moments, lunging forward
and hungry for the cold light of days