Something That I Have Not Touched With My Hands Poem by RIC BASTASA

while in bed i am enumerating a lot of things
that i really don't know
what they are and where they come from
and what use could they be

in my emptiness i think that something fuller this time
is what i need
like hot water perhaps for a cup for an afternoon tea
but the image is too ordinary for a whim

of this imagination something's got to be better this time
something that i have not touched with my hand
that i have not tasted with my tongue
i know, i know what it is, but i know that i cannot have it

and so i just lay in bed, enumerate the other things
silly and wise, and empty and full, and paths and mountains
and labyrinths, until i am a flash in full speed of images
until i am sleepy and then i forget what is it that i know that i want and yet

i cannot have
and i begin counting sheep and ships and imagine the whole ocean blanket
to my body and
face and then
i sleep

i am tired and when this happens
i do not mind what happens next and
i do not wish about anything

i am done.