Howard Firkin
I wrote a poem for you all and lost it.
I can’t remember now a single line,
which means it must have been the best of mine
since that one which I gave to ___ and she tossed it
in a drawer, or pocket, bin, left on a tram…
I sort of wish it mattered. Sort of don’t.
My poems rise like swamp gas, flake like rust,
like tired footsteps agitating dust,
like conjured metaphors that won’t.
I like to think I’m brilliant when I am.
If I could leave you anything, you know
I wouldn’t leave you. But I do and will.
No words change that, but loss at least lasts till
we don’t arrive at where we’re going to go.
I can’t remember now a single line,
which means it must have been the best of mine
since that one which I gave to ___ and she tossed it
in a drawer, or pocket, bin, left on a tram…
I sort of wish it mattered. Sort of don’t.
My poems rise like swamp gas, flake like rust,
like tired footsteps agitating dust,
like conjured metaphors that won’t.
I like to think I’m brilliant when I am.
If I could leave you anything, you know
I wouldn’t leave you. But I do and will.
No words change that, but loss at least lasts till
we don’t arrive at where we’re going to go.