The Thing

No one is the thing itself,
Though Woolf decided all were
And Stevens pursued the phrase,

The thing in itself, the thing
In itself, obsessively,
To crown imagination.

It is just that, after all,
A phrase, various phrases
In various languages,

A cluster of likenesses,
That echt Ding an Sich.
It’s effortful in English,

Also aspirational,
The unquestionably real,
The real deal, the thing itself,

And that’s when you can feel it,
How it’s something that’s not there,
Something only to be sought,

Not any of the many
Phenomena you meet with,
No, the dream, the thing itself.