The Rake's Progress

I borrow De Quincey's Confessions

of an Opium Eater, the aforementioned

an account of that singular

Oriental vice,

whereupon misplacing the volume

in transit

from the checkpoint, I attempt

to capsulize

the book's misadventures only to

suffer taciturnity

on the part of the staff until,

the duplicity

of a continued numbers game in

Chinese wearing

thin and with lassitude similar to

the opium habit,

the Chief Librarian, a girl herself

of Eastern domesticity

greets my queries with hushed tones

and solemnity akin to

a leering Siamese or bedridden

Cheshire cat.