Remembering Being a Horse
BY DAVID KEPLINGER
First to come back is the enormity
of breathing one breath from the belly
through the cavernous nostrils: then weight
on the back of the neck after that,
bending and raising the head as if a five-
year-old-child were attached to a human
occipital bone. And I remember,
out of necessity, the muscle
that hoisted the skull-heft,
easily lifting this child in the back
of my mind, who is agitated, hungry
to be known, or tired of me. I remember
the wanting to press down the scapulae
around which the muscles loop into a sling,
and wanting to run and sweat the white lather
that poured out the inside of my body. I remember
all of this. With their strigils I loved
the way they cleaned my soaking body,
stripping me of sweat, my wool-wet, heavy clothes,
until I stood as being naked feels like now.
