Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrence.

Left now with a gambler's share
to wonder what that means--
the division of zero unattempted
through the haze of calculus
and the tested skin of teeth.

Rain checks can't fend off the debts
that are left here in the wake
hoping the answer's in the mountains
again, one year later
with a few more and a few less
and a pocket full of the crisp yellow pages
of a fifty-year-old German Existentialist novel.

It'll be red rum, brown whiskey
and enough cigarettes
to fill a cancer ward:
the only way to make it right.
No work and all play's made
Jack a dull boy.

"La sangre llama," mother said.
And the blood does call
though it sounds so much prettier
in that language gone forgotten.

La sangre llama, mis amigos.