Unalloyed
I believe I want adult sanity,
which seems to me
the only unalloyed form
of heroism available today.
Or to be, in a word, unborable;
to experience
a crowded, hot, slow,
consumer-hell type situation
as not only meaningful,
but sacred,
on fire with the same force
that made the stars.
Reprinted from Found Poetry Review: W/R/T David Foster Wallace 2013. Sources: A letter to Don DeLillo, The Pale King and a Kenyon College commencement address.