Within a Sky Full of Earth

Hemingway

she said it was in Havanna in 1953
and she was visiting him
and one day she saw him
and it was in the afternoon
and he was drunk
he was stretched out on these
pillows
drunk
and she took a photo of him
and he looked up
and said, "don't you dare give
that photo to anybody."

when she came from Italy this summer
to visit me
she told me about it
and I said, "that must be some
photo."

she told me that my house was
very much like his house.
we drank, had dinner somewhere,
then she had to take a plane
out.

the photo is framed at the bottom
of my stairway now
looking north.

he was fat and he was drunk
and he's in the right
place.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI • 28 JUN 79