After you have translated all
his poetic mysteries into hieroglyphics,
crush your fragment of the Rosetta stone
and scatter the militant shards
on the Nile’s receded bank.
The time for fertility has passed.
Take the flail and ankh
from his twisted teak hands,
remembering the bird-like beauty
of his slender fingers,
rim-lit by moonlight.
Trace the filigree of sores, bas-relief,
kiss the hardened forehead where canker
and cantankerous coexisted;
why should a pharaoh be more politic, less than
regal, in this dying?
Prepare one tomb for them to share,
one pillow, scented with sandalwood and hashish;
offer love, the last obeisance, in this time of plague.
Send your prince to Osiris
with Hasan’s kiss sealing
the papyrus of his desiccated lips.
Then,
flee Egypt.
The Angel of Death has set fire to the desert sand.
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