Howard Firkin
This is the first of fourteen lines that won’t
explain the aching beauty of the curve
your bum makes to your thigh or why if I
could choose to be less awkward when I saw
you I’d refuse and take five lines to do it.
I rang you to apologise for being
stupid but apologised for being
instead. You said it sounded like another
line of mine which I denied. I lied.
And so line ten, where nothing is resolved.

Four lines are needed to explain the three
that they contain. The consequence is two
are left alone. If one of them is me,
left here, then that leaves one left there—leaves you.