War and Cake

All coyote hours

The wind disease blew

Through town hill’s dung gate

And, with its motion,

Mined night’s soft sift sands

In a curious,

Glassed combination

Of greed, war, and cake.

Pause here, a moment.

Imagine that this

Has somehow endured

Thirty centuries—

Too long for a life,

And long for trees or

Cultural tendons,

Probably longer

Than an English tongue

Will still be spoken.

It would make no sense

Then, given it makes

So little sense now.

Imagine this that.

Imagine that, when

Nabu-kusurshu

Picked up his stylus,

Instead of neatly

Transcribing the terms

Of Sumerian

With Akkadian

Near equivalents,

He had invented

Some nonsense about

Bioscriptural

Allusions, ancient

Toponyms, folk names

For anxiety,

Etc., all

Without explaining,

Much less translating,

Maybe adding some

Weird, cruel children’s rhymes—

Are you a witch, or

Are you a fairy,

Or are you the wife

Of Michael Cleary?

We think that something

Like that, like this, was

Your Linear A.