Queen of the Nile

Princess Vega by Claudine Helmuth
copyrighted and used with permission


On my horizon the sun releases twilight,
as the clock eases past midnight on your
side of the world

You tell me you want to make love by the Nile,
that river snake that slithers silently
from Africa, through your beloved Egypt,
into the waiting Mediterranean sea.

You will lift my gown of a hundred stars,
ease me onto your spread tunic, raise
my legs high to your shoulders, fill
my hungry spaces, as the night sky watches
and the Sphinx purrs lazily
across the dark empty sand.

Anthony and Cleopatra-
center stage once again.

~
A poem floats from my head,
disturbs the blue jay asleep in the elm,
slips through the window next door,
sending an elderly couple running
with surprised haste to a bed unshared
these past twenty years.

My body tingles and I know
you dream of me now, just as
I will dream of you in my own turn,
waking late, soaked in my own sweat
and longings, my gown tossed,
and one star still pressed
to the center of my forehead.


Pris Campbell
©2003

Published in The Women of the Web Anthology 2005

This poem also took second place in the Poetry Board League Competition, May 2003, judged by Steven Mueske, editor of The Burning Word.