Howard Firkin
We shelter in our bodies while the storm
contributes only to the paradise
of staring into liquid chocolate eyes.
We make imperfect bodies’ perfect form.
God is your only judge. I wish us hell.
I wish us our eternity. I long
for storms to silence every other voice,
to sing our celebration of a choice
to live defiantly of right and wrong.
God might judge us, but I judge him as well.

Not even hell survives reality.
There are no storms for us. There is no kiss
that cracks the heavens with its blasphemy;
there’s just the calm of this: this nothingness.