Who now remembers Cabavis
poet -
dying in some backstreet garret
untouched by beauty
or even her passing feet ?
His fleeting handkerchiefs of farewell
hid dead levantine mysteries
waving like flags in warm
Alexandrian breezes
freshened by the sudden chill
of dawns after love.
How deftly he recalled
long limbs relaxed without pattern
between covert glances,
swift tenderness of touch
behind tables in darkened bars.
Such small and pathetic goings on
are not enough for most of us to remember
creating the new world - this fleshless skeleton.
1968