Incident
by Norman MacCaig
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.











