Science tells us that the fire touch
we felt in a ‘67 Chevy deep in the woods
was nothing more than near grazing
of the atoms of our fingertips and tongues.

Yet there persists this confusion between
the sun streaming through the kitchen window,
lighting up the obligatory bowl of cereal,
dripping onto the bleak newspaper headlines –

and the inner mind’s perceptions of self,
the way we embrace impossible positions
and postures – how we position ourselves
against the inertial of history’s storyline.

And accept that nothing can ever be approached.

And pack up and move into societal creations.

Mendicants.

Because it is better to have dreamed dreams
than it is to dream the possible positions

we might assume in sunlight and in rain –
in every time we reached out for the impossible touch.