The Apprenticeship Novel

A body can know a lot

Of things outside the body

And not know what body is

For a long time, until things

Outside the body tell it,

And the body goes, A-ha!

That must be it, what I am.

A body with the habit

Of waking at three a.m.

Might not think too much of it,

Might have gotten used to it,

A weird habit, good for stars,

If you live in the desert,

Far from a city at least.

Then the body reads that hour

Has a nickname in Danish,

Ultvetimen, the wolf hour,

The hour when the veil is thin—

And presumably the hour

When the wolves might be troubling,

Once, when wolves still roamed the land,

Which feels right to the body,

Feels like a recognition

Of oneself as tuned to wolves

Or to the spookiest hour,

The true middle of the night,

When midnight revels are done.

Body comes into its own,

Gives its behaviors meaning,

Body of ultvetimen—

Why would a body wake up

At just this strange hour, if not

Destined to do things in it?

However ridiculous

The thought, body clings to it,

Information from outside

Telling body what it is,

Given no body wholly

Body would want any clue.