Mummified Prayers

By the gate of truth and honour, are shards

of ice, mound of natron and pit of grief.

Morph my sole into metal & let me walk

in the household of death like Moses

in the kingdom of pharaoh. I know

I am pure debris in this poem — a white linen.

I want to let go of this stinking frankincense

incensing me. Wash me clean off my past

like the brain of an amnesiac, remove

the cassia stuffed in my nose, remove

the pain of myrrh growing on my body

and rub me joy— cedar oil. By the gate

of peace and rest, are burning fires

and this cinnamon burning me inside.

Armour me with Ibrahim's

sufficient for me is my lord. Sometimes

fire is ice making a body crystal fresh.

Sometimes grief leads me to you, reminds

me of you. I bathe in a tub, filled with

depression. Sometimes I drink the palmy

water and it chokes me. Sometimes a corpse

eats only his mummified prayers — the cinnamon,

the cassia, the myrrh and the cedar oil.