Cézanne Cézanne
It is possible to desire
when you do not yet know
if, or to which level, you are
desired, but it is very difficult
to practice desire
when you do not feel
in any way desired.
This is just romcom basics,
you tell yourself, feeling
in a sense undesired, left to
cash out imagination.
The fan turns into the air
turns into the mountain
turns into the unreadable reach
of life. Someone once told you
that love is upkeep, involves going
beyond how you end up
being alone with need. How do you
keep up what cannot be
defined, you replied. Start with
caring or moving to where
you don’t know you’ll be.
Cézanne Cézanne
And so each attempt
is defended
by a new theory,
that we have obliged
the flesh enough
to render the mind exact.
Look at the outdoor voices
bouncing down dusk.
Even the bodies have gotten
along enough to let voice
out to play. Such is posture,
we aim to say, a making up
for language—that to cast
our names out from identity
means we are to find a way
to sit alone or naked without
words. The shade gets drawn
as the shade gets thrown
and we end up getting
artificial with the light.
