From wherever thought comes from

Innocence is preferable to guilt
emptiness more bearable than sorrow

this lodging house has many secret doors
the corridors we tread are long and narrow

I lay upon the bed all afternoon
and tried to pick a splinter from a wound

and though it came away a thousand times
the pain of it immediately resumed

from wherever thought comes from

tea with bad milk

I remember our first holiday
on a campsite in the rain

a woman read our fortunes
before we headed home again

made us tea with bad milk

guilt sits upon my memory
unpalatable and lumpy

but one is made to bear it all
then swallow it politely

what the fortune teller told us
I never could recall

but no amount of sourness now
can change what came before

tea with bad milk