“I’ve Been Saved by a Blessed Fatigue”

When I was evangelical and young,
One excuse for reading things forbidden
Was that one must study the enemy
If the enemy’s to be defeated.

Of course, the weakness of this argument
Showed in how easily the enemy
Seduced me. Vaccination is tricky.
Now, my enemy is aspiration.

I have had all kinds of aspirations,
Failure leading me to understand them,
Or try to, which meant more aspiration.
I’ve learned where aspiration arises,

Read case histories—the biology,
Poetry, and metaphysics of it.
I am old in years, old beyond my years,
And no longer so easily seduced.

It catches me. Paws at me. I let it.
I am not aroused, but I am amused.
I pick it up. It lifts me. I drop it.
This trick is to not want not to want it.

Freedom only transmits on the shorter wavelengths
Oscillating at the frequency of escape.