It stands on all four hooves, just stopped
as if before a cliffside topped
with waving grasses like its mane.
Ten thousand horses made the plain
resound in one bass voice, as long
as Empress Wu controlled the Tang.
But now in cubed museum glass
just one horse flats the waving grass.
With all that muscle, flesh, and hair
long moldered in the earth’s thick care,
this one unbroken horse stands posed,
its eyelids heavy, almost closed.

Image copyright © Eskenazi Ltd. Used by permission.