Howard Firkin
The opportunities for talk are few.
Well, none. Thought has to be enough. That’s good.
And touch, of course, is limited to wood,
which means I never think I’m touching you.
The dark itself is easy to accept.
The sounds are strange at first. You hear the tick
of time itself in murmurings of earth,
the lick of tiny tongues, cells giving birth
to cell selves, feet and cilia, the click
of tiny jaws. You wait. Then you expect.

The time will come, but never fast enough,
but never with the flash of light, the blare
of horns, the thick confetti rain of stuff.
The time will come with running out of air.