Читать книгу Swan Bones - Bethany Bowman - Страница 12

The gray bobbed woman

calls common loons

with her hands at the bonfire,

lips pressed to thumbs.

Fingers open, close,

up and down like a kestrel’s tail

or blue fan in the relief

at the lower northern portico

of Hatshepsut’s temple.

In a boat the queen fishes,

fowls in kilt and crown

for as long as the colors

hold true or until the usurper

erases her inscriptions.

Like the first female pharaoh,

the gray woman would like

to remove the feminine “t”

from the end of her name

or float into some tundra pond,

evicting territorial owners.

Instead she’ll moan

as smoke and early summer

ascend like red granite obelisks,

each rich yodel a prayer

the pair will mate for life.