In the life before this one
and the one before that,
in all of the lives as far back
as the psychic could see,
I'd been a priest, a cleric,
a monk, an ascetic.
Starvation, deprivation,
denial had moved me
toward an ecstasy
always unfulfilled.
This time, she said,
it isn't so easy.
The path isn't drawn
using dogma's map,
and I still carry in me
the ghosts of my past,
all of those men who
wanted to be free
of their bodies.
This time, she said,
I need my appetites.
I need desire and satiation.
I need to feast at the table
from which I'd always
so expertly run. If not,
I'd never complete
the journey my soul
had started all
those lifetimes ago.
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