Sauna
Phillip Whitman Elvrum
1. SAUNA
Out past beyond the field
inside the birches
under rising steam:
a small room.
To prove I don't exist,
to show that I am beyond
this animal form
and this lost mind.
Or am I?
The wood heats up
and cracks and pulls apart
the way a body groans.
I transform
and the stars show.
I don't think the world
still exists.
Only the room in the snow
and the light from coals
and only
this
breath.
I annihilate all sensation
(abandoned breath,
hanging in the branches)
with the glowing core exposed,
head first into the frozen lake.
(Into the lake, mid-winter
cutting through
all waking thoughts)
In rain and wind
and blanketing night
(shown at last)
standing under steam rising.
My life is a small fire
I carry around.
(coming into a clearing)
Glowing coals
on the wet ground.