Norman MacCaig, "Incident"

I look across the table and think 
(fiery with love) 
Ask me, go on, ask me 
to do something impossible, 
something freakishly useless, 
something unimaginable and inimitable 

Like making a finger break into blossom 
or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes 
or remembering tomorrow. 

I will you to ask it. 
But all you say is 
Will you give me a cigarette? 
And I smile and, 
returning to the marvelous world 
of possibility 
I give you one 
with a hand that trembles 
with a human trembling.

posted : Wednesday, November 4th, 2009