104

He is smoking in the back
Room, watching it grow dark.
His hunched back is pale
And indefinite against the
Window, and as he puts
The cigarette out he leans
And picks up a bottle of
Painkillers and a glass and
Pours whiskey and eats the
Pills, three, and he drinks.

He walks back into the other
Room where the mime is
A long skeletal shape on
The couch with a sheet on
Him; his narrow shoulders
Visible beneath it and the
Pale, shapeless framework
Of his outdrawn abdomen.
Pierrot stoops down by him
And grips the face by the jaw
And wrenches it and forces
A measure of the whiskey in.