Samba Pa Ti
I stood at a Gambler's Fire.
I watched its orange flames
I watched its floating ashes under the cold desert sky.
I heard the crackling of its burning heat.

Beads of sweat fell along the Gambler's smoky skin.
He grasped his lost returns:
The old photos of a woman he once loved.
Like rolling dice he offered them to the burning flames.

"Yesterday, I searched the internet for a woman I knew. She wanted my love. But I bet on the wealth of aloneness. I wagered on the perfect whir of neon lights.  Twenty years ago I saw her last. Twenty years ago I held her at a concert in Mexico. That night I escaped along a mission wall. Now after all this time I won the elusiveness of a Senorita, but the story said she died. Cancer took her this week. I did not know."

The Gambler held onto the desert stars...then wandered into the space of the Sonoran night. He wagered on midnight snakes; the rattlers of death. I could have called his name. Stopped him. But I too had turned the pictures of old lovers into flames. Watched the allure of their mortal ashes burn. Now I would draw from the poison of those snakes. Twenty years ago I said good-bye. Samba Pa Ti.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE