What number of beloveds bore on shoulders bare her litter when she set her camp
up in this neighborhood among Etruscans eating mice translating Cleopatra
in her emerald hourglass across this bridge before this bridge was here? The hefty
loads of fledgling youths who pledged their own tanned hides to cover her gilt braids their nights
filled up with pitching pyramids for her & rubbing raw her lamps with whispering
moustaches on their lips like faded signatures on old receipts fasting for her
gaze running her saffron baths rolling out their hairless chests in rows so pristine toes
need never grace rude cobblestones & blow-drying one thousand & one narcissuses
so that they would open right when she woke up from under blue eye-shadow after
blow-drying all of her virgin wigs as well to save their queen from Roman fever.
How charming were those merkin-tiled mamluk lads that merely lived to hold her king-sized
baskets full of aspirins. How strong the young physiques who waved the ancient air
before her beating off with palms & fronds mosquito teeth that longed to nibble on
her turquoised ears. Who oared her o'er this river not half as nice as half the Nile...