| The
Pharaoh's wives touch the mud with their toes.
You and I
float in Moses' cradle. Dear friends, you and I
Are parted
by a thin skin from the ignorance of the Nile.
Ghosts
compose themselves from ground mist.
Friends,
our souls are moist. "Dry souls are best,"
Plotinus
said, but he was nursing at eleven.
Some
children hear the thin words the dead speak.
Men piece
out secrets hidden in prime numbers.
Women
report what Eternity has told them to say.
Our cradle,
like Moses', is porous to the Nile.
You and I
will never have one whole day of light.
At three
o'clock, a wall will creak, or a hare will die.
Beauty has
reached us drenched in birth blood.
As our eyes
open, bright blood splashes on the floor.
The baby's
descent gives us a taste for war.
Some souls
remember well, climb so high
They are
remembered forever. But Macbeth fell
A thousand
miles when the feathers touched his face. |