Imagined body: 
pensive, fat-assed,
sweaty with compassion

for all. Real body?
Cold layers like
Damascus steel,

cold eye when turned 
toward others’ pain,
cold and round and dry-eyed.

He tells himself
he is nearly one 
to his aspiration.

He tells himself 
he loves, he is 
kind and as free

as his imagined body
imagines itself to be.
He stands in his imagined

place in the world
and tries to occupy it:
stiff, sharp, cold to the touch.