Epistemology

The wan instructor holds his palm
above the candle, smiles as it licks him
like the family dog. “See?
It doesn’t hurt me! I’ve refuted
its spurious claim to existence! Look!”
He holds up the blackened, smoking thing,
a bleeding butt of cigaretteness,
takes it over to the window,
regards it in the light of reason,
the burnt skin of illusion peeling
from the boneness underneath. Then
quite suddenly he leaps to faith
in the insubstantial universe
of hard ideas, passes through
in a wreath of shards, plunging toward
the idea of earth, a blur of truth.
His lizard-lidded section sits
in disbelieving silence, wary,
unwilling to be taken in.