Howard Firkin
Who is it isn’t moving there? Outside
our sunless lecture hall on Melbourne lawn
they’re reading papers, talking, dreaming porn
or future novels, making rules that slide
between the guessed, the spoken, and the known.
We could be there to watch as each collects
and ponders, classifies, and reconciles
their butterflies of silences and smiles;
but we’re in here and feeling intellect’s
steel teeth crunch past the flesh and into bone.

I know who isn’t moving, isn’t quick.
I’m buried overground: the wooden suit.
I don’t remember even feeling sick…
No flowers, by request, but please throw fruit.