It’s a misty sunny spring morning

My new warm,
tanned lover
lays sideways
over the walls of Ur,
the curve of her hips showing the sun
the path to my forehead

The desert hides in plain view
among the cows
&
the white wide birds
rice rooted down in the mud,
the gates of hell




the bull horns over her head while she baths
sinking her rounded body into the sharp waters
the clay hands of the ships surrounding her
filled with flowers and
offerings
silk
silver
a bunch of clivias
in the thirsty dew

but she cannot sleep
and she wanders in my back with her claws and
her tongue
asking me to forget her
and marry her  in the deep green fields
all her servants holding her jellyfish crown

the city disappears in the dim
dusk light
she stretches
while I walk away
slowly
evaporating
into the bed of the two rivers
in a cloud of still orange water
bronze
millenary angry gods
and the oil of her skin

the deluge coming over our heads
like the thin singing tone of the Zu bird