Spanish Riding School

Be not indiscreet in the demands, nor requiring him to perform indiscreetly.
—Goethe

In this late dream, you straddled me
as if I were a Lipizzaner stallion.
And the way your knees

urged me on
into the complexity of dressage—
well, I felt I could not fumble

my any careful movement.
Although you rode hard
through the serene Straussian reverie,

I knew my haunches would prevail,
for I am the larger animal
and the audience always watches me.