Going to Egypt

"Dedicated to death," everyone says, dismissing

The Egyptians and their cluttered tombs, though they

Lined up for hours to gawk at ebony chairs bearing

The ghost of a king, and craved just one deathmask of gold

Because it would pay their rent for a thousand years.

With Tut long gone, the Metropolitan's catacomb rooms

Compel but the curious few. So too Brooklyn's mausoleum.

On summer afternoons I am interred alone in Egypt to ask

Those who are avatars of themselves how to live forever

In the land that is always summer. "Prepare yourself,"

They say, widening their wide-open eyes. "Prepare.

Heap possessions in your tomb. Squirrel away your life.

The land you enter will be the one you left. Absolute

Of course, like your face reflected in a silver mirror,

Like fields fertilized by the rising Nile." Eyes of

Obsidian set in alabaster snake me into their Black Hole

Beyond the river. I see how simple it is to reassemble

Happiness like a chair in another dimension, how sensible

To clone the flesh that makes one glad, how practical

To carve little robots to perform all menial tasks. Death

Is but a door to a room we must furnish before we enter.

"May I dwell as Osiris among the Shining Ones.

Grant me the Eye of Horus. Celebrate the Opening

Of my Mouth." The whispers hiss behind the statues

Of Hatshepsut and Sekhmet, hum inside canopic jars,

Quickened by my presence like Memnon's voice at sunrise.

Am I with them in The West? Do I call myself? I know

Them as they are, simple little souls delighted to regain

A favorite toy, a ring of lapis lazuli, the gold sandals

They saved to wear when life began again. Preserved

Somewhere perhaps I lie, my double eating the cakes and ale

Painted in my tomb, wearing scarabs secreted in an ivory box

Inscribed with spells. My beloved sits by the lotus pond

And sings: "Merely to run toward you is cool water for a man

Who is thirsty." I reply: "With your arms around me I feel

As if I belong to the Pharaoh." Death was not what they

Were after, but an afterlife as bountiful as feasts depicted

In their tombs, as joyful as vineyard workers drinking

Beer at noon, as beautiful as a woman dancing to a lyre,

As content as a man fishing by the reeds. Prepare once more

My Coming Forth by Day. Wrap me in gold, in carnelian.

Set a cat at my feet for company. Throw in my cosmetic pots

And a few pomegranates, cones of pomade for my hair, even

A beetle if it is turquoise or jade. Why do I glut myself

With these things, with figs and dates, piles of linen sheets,

Endless baskets of grass and palm, so many glass cases

Filled with shards of lives? Why do we preserve those

Who preserved themselves in this necropolis of ours,

If not to learn we must weigh our hearts and minds and deeds

In the balance guarded by Anubis and be found true, before

We eat and drink and speak again in a better land which is

Perhaps now, here, this time, this place, this world.