of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Washing the Corpse"
They had, for a while, grown used to him. But after
they lit the kitchen lamp and in the dark
it began to burn, restlessly, the stranger
was altogether strange. They washed his neck,
and since they knew nothing about his life
they lied till they produced another one,
as they kept washing. One of them had to cough,
and while she coughed she left the vinegar sponge,
dripping, upon his face. The other stood
and rested for a minute. A few drops fell
from the stiff scrub-brush, as his horrible
contorted hand was trying to make the whole
room aware that he no longer thirsted.
And he did let them know. With a short cough,
as if embarrassed, they both began to work
more hurriedly now, so that across
the mute, patterned wallpaper their thick
shadows reeled and staggered as if bound
in a net; till they had finished washing him.
The night, in the uncurtained window-frame,
was pitiless. And one without a name
lay clean and naked there, and gave commands.
My Improv':
They called her a witch from the start,
neverminding how violently her body
was bent, nearly outside-in and inside
a hole barely big enough for a child.
A bronze ring continues to strangle
what remains of her neck, the flesh
long subjected to the perverted mouths
of parasites--and on her skeletal mouth
pursed lips seem fossilized mid-prayer.
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