Anthem: Ecstasy of Fuel

When you love a god completely
you are prey to bliss: blessed
in that inordinately gratifying sense
of cruelty which haunts the root
of “bless” – to wound. Too soon

you’ll face the prospect of departure:
anyway, what seems departure
from the point of view of life:
that cliff of death you must imagine
from the scattered evidence

will sever you inevitably from the city’s
early Spring and its resistances
and grim delights; that an eternal
battening of hatches will eventually
snatch you from Manhattan

must, you have to think, be undergone.
But undertaking all the amplitudes
of this renowned dark town
before the undertaker takes his cue –
disposes of the residue of you –

is really all you’ve got to do.
Can you say the thing outright?
You adore this god with all
your might. And this god needs
your adoration: You’re the sort

of thing it eats. Although you are
the least of its small feats, and though
you’re doomed to lose the duel with
its ballooning mad insatiability –
you are an ecstasy of fuel.


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