Howard Firkin
Sometimes I’m tired—body is a weight.
My brain is stepped; my thoughts are footfalls, footsteps.
My mind is clumsy as a pair of forceps:
I try to pick up buttons from a plate.
I try and fail and fail to understand.
To think is not to feel; to feel is not
to understand; to understand is not
to know; to know is not to have faith; not
to have faith is to not have what you’ve got.
Too tired to tell the lie I cannot stand.
I hear your sleepy voice and smell your scent.
Your body is a beacon, guiding mark
of infrared, of warmth, of where love went,
of how light only penetrates the dark.
My brain is stepped; my thoughts are footfalls, footsteps.
My mind is clumsy as a pair of forceps:
I try to pick up buttons from a plate.
I try and fail and fail to understand.
To think is not to feel; to feel is not
to understand; to understand is not
to know; to know is not to have faith; not
to have faith is to not have what you’ve got.
Too tired to tell the lie I cannot stand.
I hear your sleepy voice and smell your scent.
Your body is a beacon, guiding mark
of infrared, of warmth, of where love went,
of how light only penetrates the dark.