Howard Firkin
Experience has taught you how to look
the other way: inwards. Your world is whole,
of universes, it’s one you control.
Your mind is its own author, reader, book—
all else is nothing, distant as the stars.
Not begging, selling, not in any way
involved, your life’s evolved beyond the touch
of friends, of lovers, anybody much…
Who touches you? You really couldn’t say.
Not men you suck off, hunched in family cars.
You walk past. Bird through cloud. Oblivious
and beautiful. You walk and disappear
and leave the obvious, lascivious,
the tedious. You leave. We stay. Left here.
the other way: inwards. Your world is whole,
of universes, it’s one you control.
Your mind is its own author, reader, book—
all else is nothing, distant as the stars.
Not begging, selling, not in any way
involved, your life’s evolved beyond the touch
of friends, of lovers, anybody much…
Who touches you? You really couldn’t say.
Not men you suck off, hunched in family cars.
You walk past. Bird through cloud. Oblivious
and beautiful. You walk and disappear
and leave the obvious, lascivious,
the tedious. You leave. We stay. Left here.
