Black Tambourine

The interests of a black man in a cellar Mark tardy judgment on the world’s closed door. Gnats toss in the shadow of a bottle, And a roach spans a crevice in the floor.

Æsop, driven to pondering, found Heaven with the tortoise and the hare; Fox brush and sow ear top his grave And mingling incantations on the air.

The black man, forlorn in the cellar, Wanders in some mid-kingdom, dark, that lies, Between his tambourine, stuck on the wall, And, in Africa, a carcass quick with flies.