Mannequin

At a table of burnished wood;
The lifeless flesh of an organism
Beneath my paper
Lies,
Held for a slower decay.

And at the moment she, to catch an eye
Lifts a smoothed ash arm,
Leaning to catch the light to
Capture an eye
In the bend of her side
I feel justified for my solipsism.

In her being–prior to sensation
And herself without desire–:
A great agency
Has grown somehow self-cognizant.
Its motive is pure.
It knows that it

Must never reach finality.
In every form assumed it diminishes
And halts.
In every form assumed.
But the agency is realized in the form of an  imperative
To carry forth and transfer its momentum.
Rolling through organisms, it spreads.

So the body hangs its weight on a burnished shoulder
As she leans,
A mannequin.

And I have also felt it at work in me.