After Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Entrance”
Whoever you are: boy, or not quite, step out
From the room in which you know nothing,
Gather your one horse by his one mane
And run him to the river: whoever you are.
With your tongue, which has obeyed nothing,
Lift very slowly this Bed of Eros into the ear
Of this same horse and place his slender broken
Into the water like a boy, or not quite, that rang
And rang between the two white sheets of a bed,
The boy looking nothing like a black tree, singed
And alone, in a white sky though his limbs spread
Resemble a mane leaking out over the water
Like a flock of trees or ghost: whoever you are:
Boy or black zero in the palm of a white bed in a room
In which you know nothing: what should be done
With all of these bodies awaiting their execution?