xvi–xvii. Dispossession

xvi.

There’s something about masculinity, as a
Gauge for the self and its appearance in the world:

A lowered voice, a pitch below the everyday,
Registers the spoken so as to be unheard;

A fixed body, broad and seamless like the night sky,
Erases the trace of itself and the eye.

I am not sure what it means to be masculine,
But I wonder if it’s something like tracing a

Figure 8: open for a moment, only to
Close, like an archway you can see but not pass through.

xvii.

We’re indebted to our bodies:
The gym just reveals that burden,
The necessity that binds us
To the future by a frayed thread.

So, we return to that temple,
Where mingled and yet separate,
We crowd around each other in
A ceremony of silence.