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 this room in the snow
And the light from coals
And only this breath
I annihilate
(Abandoned breath)
All sensation
(Hanging in the branches)
And with the glowing core exposed
(The 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