Howard Firkin
Ridiculously beautiful you stretch
your body long along the bed and turn
and ask me, "What do you expect to learn?"
I wring my brain for reasons it can fetch,
excuses to explain this fascination.
My study is your body over time:
its swellings and its falls, the tiny marks,
the lines like tidal lines, the pales and darks.
Perfection doesn’t have a paradigm:
it fuels all living, all imagination.
You think your beauty brief, time unforgiving.
You’re wrong. There is no particle of song,
no moment you can say is love. All living,
all beauty is a process. And it’s long.
your body long along the bed and turn
and ask me, "What do you expect to learn?"
I wring my brain for reasons it can fetch,
excuses to explain this fascination.
My study is your body over time:
its swellings and its falls, the tiny marks,
the lines like tidal lines, the pales and darks.
Perfection doesn’t have a paradigm:
it fuels all living, all imagination.
You think your beauty brief, time unforgiving.
You’re wrong. There is no particle of song,
no moment you can say is love. All living,
all beauty is a process. And it’s long.