shedu
::oriental institute, chicago
111507.01
I ride the wings of demigods too heavy with pride to fly
I walk the wall to the gate of Ishtar
and cut my eyes on the sun
I sing the song of swallows
I style the coils of kings and line their eyes with kohl
and etch their lines in stones
that I skip discus on Euphrates
Tell me that you see me
naked in the hanging vines
squeezing my nipples
my feet on hardened clay
my hair is heavy in the evening heat
and the night is a thick wet tongue across my shoulder blades
I watch the wetting lips of emperors
murmur in their sleep
111507.02
When the moon puckers the silken shroud of the east
When it bleeds like a pearl into the dark oil sky
me and my sisters
there are eight
go naked to the delta
and cover our skins in silt
still warm from the long sun
We rip the serpents from the mud
and drag them between our legs
We cake our hair in rotting leaves
and blacken our grinning faces with river pulp
We chat the name Inanna
we are tall and dressed in silt
We pour lamp oil on our breasts
and beckon in the merchant ships
111507.03
thick sinews of sound
bend endless through yawning limbs
the temple welcomes
111507.04
I am no waiting beauty
I arrive with purpose,
a solitary bird,
against a desperate glitter of night.
111507.05
The Department of Antiquities in Iraq
has donated, has generously donated,
oil from leaves of mint
clear, thin eucalyptus
the heavy bulge of olives
their plumpest dates
almonds still in thick green sleeves
and virgin brides
with sullen smiles.
111507.06
At the feast of Babel
the girls with painted eyes
drank palm wine from the south
and laughed with their syrupy throats
They touched each other
with soft brown toes
and chewed their smothered moans
Then came the unshaven men
with scythes and sharpened wood and
copper banged to poison tips and straining
quivers and bows with strings that ache
for bloodsong
and we sang
and sang
and sang
bared red teeth
and sanded eye
till the last of us
bubbled out a sigh
till the bowels cooled
beside a braised rare bird
and granite cracked
with bearded cackles
my stiffened finger twitch
111507.07
now we fetch water
our regal flesh is caned
our daughter’s wombs broken by dogs
the stench of them unrinsable
our queens are choked
by the cocks of carpenters
river bottom kindest grave