Howard Firkin
(First casualty of love)
Some things are absolute and some are true.
Some things appear to vanish, then they float
back into view, like photos of a boat.
Some things are obsolete and some are new,
and some things are. Invisible and there.
The truth is just another wave-form, pulse,
an energy that moves our words around,
converts them into light and lyre sound,
to lovers’ twenty questions: true or false;
to something felt approaching through the air.

The touch upon my skin is not the sun—
that’s only half of it. The warmth I feel
is you, your touch, the something that you’ve done
with words, with truth, imaginary and real.