The yoga must be working.
I haven’t wanted to punch anyone
in the mouth for weeks.
Still, during Savasana,            
my monkey mind leaps around,
regretting this & that,
regretting high school,
wishing I’d kicked her ass out of bed
when my steady confessed
she’d fucked the school bad boy.
Ohm . . . .  Ohm . . . .  Ohm . . . .

I’ve copied this passage
from Swami Swatamarama’s Hatha Yoga Pradipika
& taped it to the bathroom mirror:

“When the Rudra granthi is pierced, 
Prana enters the seat of the Lord
(the space between the eyebrows),
spontaneously producing Ecstasy, 
vanquishing old age, disease, hunger, 
and sleep.  The Yogi becomes wise like a god.”
Ecstacy?  Wisdom?  
I wouldn’t know.  I do know this: 
there’s no such thing as balance, 
only balancing.
                        

I’m driving to Sonoita for the races, 
listening to Don Giovanni on Bluetooth,
singing along with Leporello & Donna Elvira.

My Latino friend calls opera
music for rich Gabachos.  My trans-friend
calls it binary essentialism.  Even my
lesbian friend hates opera, calling it 
unwoke, hetero-melodrama.  They’d sneer 

at me now—white, cishet & privileged—
shivering as the soprano hits an impossible
note & the palo verdes along the freeway
explode like geysers yellow as butterfat.
                        

My wife models the Johnny Was face mask
she ordered from Amazon, the material,
a profusion of extravagant blossoms,
enhancing her green-gold irises & the cute
little crease between her eyes. I’m studying
my navel, the skin just above it, hirsute
& blotched, how it pulses to the beat
of my heart.  I never understood Newton’s
First Law of  Motion, but the Fourth Law 
of Motion, which I just invented, promises 
the heart will always persist in its state 
of uniform motion.  Let us pray.