Howard Firkin
"Deception is the cloth, the cloak I wear,
my burqa, liberation in concealing.
My words are my chador to mask my feeling,
protecting me from him, his eyes, his stare."
She says she chooses to compose her self
herself, and doesn’t want her him involved.
In isolation: contemplation, proof
of gods that flit beneath the temple roof
like swallows, divination, problems solved,
or, if not solved, placed on a higher shelf.

"It’s dark. It may be my returning to
the mother womb—it’s dark and warm enough.
It’s where I process thoughts concerning you;
it’s where I hide life’s treasure from its stuff."