COLD THROW

I can come but still I cannot meditate.

Before these months, when I saw a bathtub,

I did not dare lie down inside of it,

knowing I might begin to dream of physical

cloud and epidermis, and come apart

as completely as I had dreamed.

As I had feared. So many sensations.

But you know, I tried this last night,

as I went through my meticulous list of

trying, top to bottom. I lit the expensive

candle on the windowsill naked in

my bathroom and admired the stained

marble, and thought of all the things

I was afraid to forget, but could not

know them, nor find reason, and when

in the morning my mother came in

exclaiming she smelled the candle,

I said I did not. For this is how,

whatever is apparent to you I do not see.

While the white scented body of wax

was slow waning there was no pleasant

smell, or any smell at all, only

the self in the throat, slowly diminishing.