My muse has fled to Havana.

She’s sitting in some low dive

smoking cigars and drinking rum

and telling Hemmingway lies.

She’s doing a dirty tango

with a sweaty stevedore.

She’s sleeping late and going broke

and thinking of being a whore.

She breakfasts on huevos rancheros

at  three in the afternoon,

then snorts a  little pick-me-up

from a pitted silver spoon.

She pins a gardenia in her hair,

paints crimson on her lips

and heads out for the cantina again

with a saucy sway to her hips.

Will she come back sad and broken

with venereal disease,

with the face of an old woman

and a nasty case of fleas?

Will I want her if she comes back

bitter, raddled, sour?

Do I want to write the things she’ll learn

in those shady, steamy hours?

My muse has fled to Havana

and wallows in her despair,

her genius mis-spent in a squalid life

with gardenias in her hair.