full title: ON THE PAINTING OF A MAN
BALANCING A HAT ON THE TIP OF A CIGAR

                    --from Cafe Le Quartier Libre

i can tell from the way he holds his body that
he's from Paris
as a child he spent his summers playing hide & seek
around the Eiffel Tower
he lost his virginity to a generous German ****
when he was eleven...a woman into Tarot and
palm reading

He smoked his first cigar with her
   i can tell, i know
and it can be said that she was his one and only
true love

O people reading these lines
   if only you could see him
Rodin would have loved him and would have devoted
decades on busts of him

O, if only you could see the way
he balances that hat on his cigar
   still under her spell
~~
..circa 1978..Copyright 1981/2012 Spiros Zafiris
..from Midnight Magic (1981) ISBN:0-9690643-2-2
~~