from “The Blue Cigarette and Other Stories”

…You stoop after beauty, only beauty,
pure beauty— and where does that leave you? Isn’t it written
that on a specified day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision?
That’s how it was from the beginning. Aren’t you tired of a language
that takes no risks, spoken by persons who have taken no risks?
Weren’t you the one trying to make out signs in the feeble streetlight,
in the gauzy rain? Yes, the tough girls, the lovely boys, the rage,
all that business they always called love. And me with my
cigarette, the tip sweet in my bitter mouth, and that match just struck
in its sulfur and brashness, that match in my fingers, flaring.