never once tone-deaf to the Almighty

stopped up with thoughts, i am,
filled up with longing and eternal foolish adolescent loneliness
comfortable without comfort
alone but not lonely, though
babies' cries do come drifting down from between the floorboards
through the thin walls of these hundred-year-old houses
to me in my too-warm, too-soft bed
many arms pleading or holding at bay
hard words,
i speak them to myself or hear them spoken
yet best comforts come on forks, on sheets, in dreams
i can't trust myself
though my wishing wants so much to make it so
my poor eyesight and my weak, weak heart
what a terrible, laughable allegory of infirmity, i am
i'm so soft, they leave fingerprints on me
i have always been this way, from the start