The Key

      I wrote these lines soon after I was expelled from Heaven;

they had kept my cloths at the door and the weathervane

which I killed when I was young still came and harassed

            my sleep.

      The smell of wine in my breath stunk and made them step

aside, no one neared me, although I had in my head the key

of the castle and I was occasionally frightened by the thuds

of the broken chandeliers.

      I was looking for a corner and a candle in the fog and all

Marias who could be laid so fast that they never sinned;

ah, how much I loved them on the dirty beds, while their

sharp nails ripped the night like flashes of the Grace of God.

      I don’t remember but the face of the night watchman who

grabbed me by the neck; soon after the woman raised me

and placed me deep in her eyes and, in the autumnal light,

we returned to the city where a barbarous crowd was running

after the eternally lost game.