Ranier Marie Rilke





 

Plaster Cast Torso of Apollo

TRANSLATED BY ALICE FULTON
We can infer his long since looted head
with eyes like curated hail. And that his chest
is still benumbed by empire from above,
as if a morgue, in his glare, now canonized,

fires an arctic solstice. Otherwise, the pocked tits
could not oppress you, and Victory
would not grin through smug ligaments
to reach that sperm hive where priapism lived.

Otherwise, this bust would seem impugned
by the rude graffiti, ART, that’s spraybombed on it,
and would not slutshame like a frat boy’s tweet:

would not, from every morsel of itself
extrude a tomb: for here there is no flesh
to witness for you. You must be those eyes.
 

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