Epitaph for the Old Howard

Off Scollay Square, back from the subway, stands

the last stand of the last Burlesque. Its doors

are boarded; and its boards are bare. And like

a charge, the license for its license hangs

suspended over Howard Street. Where trefoil

and the quatrefoil of Gothic windows

framed a church, new worshippers of sex

observed its ancient rituals. From pit

and balcony, their eyes, like ghostly lovers,

loved untouched. Their ghosts return. Desire

returns like echoed ragtime tapping through

a haunted house. Now furtive footsteps shuffle

through more red-light exits till their sex is

on the town. Turned inside out, desire's dim

audiences disperse to crumpled tabloids

in the street, and tabloids on newsstands.

The street recovers what the Burlesque lost.

Tired trouper, darkened derelict, the

Howard Athenaeum's sign creaks windily,

Ya got a light? Ya got a dime?