~
When Pharaoh
checked out at the Red Sea,
odd circumstance made a grab for his vacant scepter,
and kingdom collided
with plague to paint a mural
on the palace wall (or maybe, it was the hotel lobby),
of a dreamer's garden,
his wife in veils, her dance a cordial
invitation to a great many unmentionable things,
the feral sky had blown
itself out, and in muted candle
nightshade, the mistress of war disembarked,
and so somewhere
in those upper rooms, ruler
and consort, hearing the sound of running water,
mystified their carnal
senses by infusing themselves
with a little vigorous morphine of the soul
~