Ecstasy Facsimile

Like someone whose best years were lived decades ago, my soul

walks into a club with a popped collar. Later that night, they emerge

out of a musky room, evening’s routines Sminted out of their mouth.

Morning, my soul tries not to ogle swimmers at Wannsee: what’s water

but water when I’m in it, white fractures the sky. All my body lets me know

is within reach of my arms, my soul muffles their complaints with a fist

like that woman in Gauguin, frozen in the act of devouring herself,

my soul acting out whenever they want to be exempt from me. I’m short

as a love affair, my soul’s not smart enough to outstrip their distractions.

Compassion, the swami’s guided meditation intones… but too much longing

shackles you to this world: I’m not compassionate, my longings lack

imagination, like many I’m convinced I’ve been defined by my generation’s

tepid commitment to private pain. I think it too often, and so with resentment

as default face I punish myself, compensate. Off my shoulders I peel skin and loss.

Ecstasy Facsimile

John Keats

I’ve missed out on so much, you know, because of my sadness—

but what am I without the plates soaking in the sink for days?

Must I upset the cobwebs? Shall I ready my soul, three steps at a time

down the stairs, must I stack empty pizza boxes in the courtyard?

Bliss: bruised fruit, the wished-for heat. My soul shall, amateur

juggler, switch between apps, spend evenings on their knees, eyes

and face glazed, the sticky ribbons, the glistening bitte of summer,

season of lube and saw-toothed linden, my soul unbosoming its needs

to anyone ready, fucked by ghosts I’ll be, o ecstasy, who are you to

involve yourself, always in predictable form, just when I’m almost

absolved? The bodies I am I’ll EasyGlide. If I vanish into Tiergarten

and emerge with a better self intact, what then? I fret about the same

answers. What if my soul can’t delight in its demise as I think it must,

as changeably blue, nothing, no hope, could no-hope salvage us?