The gym is here today, perfect for me, exactly
as it was yesterday: too many mirrors, too many
glances, not enough weight, and not enough

pulse to burst me out, smelling like

bodies deconstructing. The stink of themselves
airing out in the uncleanliness of another day
that had to be. This one, too, to turn out

having been a necessary pixel. Even though

today it looks fuzzy. For instance, I could be
a deranged circus master right now, taming
my body as if it were a lion, commanding, as if

brandishing a lash, that beast to jump through

each fiery ring conflagrating in my combustible
mind. Like this one: Wouldn't this be happiness?
If I were a handsome actor, who lived his craft

and knew what a secret he were tapping into?

Who knew that really there was just one of us,
passing through each of us? And who, still, was
able to enjoy women, as blessed fruit he might

pick off the tree of life, and not as immaculate

fields of first fallen snow that almost desperately
seem to require distance and impassibility.
Wouldn’t it be? I lash the lion, he jumps

through the conflagration, and into flames.