What we want we cannot have

We talked before of mechanism and dials and gears

Of the hand that pulls the strings

Of the lips that cover the teeth

Those hands, those lips

An unsteadiness in speech and in action

I sign my name and see more of me

In the feeble shaking of a letter than in a word or thought

For a kinder world of marble

Not the roughness of asphault, the flickering lights

I wish we would fall straight to earth

But we stutter and stop

No compass, no machines to guide us