THE EMPRESS OF CERTAIN

In a Levantine land
her lips are filled with milk and honey.

I approach with laughter, cymbals, ankle-bells,
with horses, flutes, basil and marjoram,

coming as a guest, coming as a caravan. 
Chilled infusions of hibiscus await, blood red.

I come to her incomplete, a chrysalis.
If I am silk, 

she will nurture me on her mulberry skin
until I burst into ecdysis.

She sits cross-legged inside her pavilion,
its gossamer curtains shadow

color-striped walls, wind
from the west lifting her henna-red hair.

“Men,” she smiles, “men are like dogs — call they come, 
throw stones they run.” 

She captures with silk: A guest and a fish each lasts three days,
“But we can always find another fish.”

Princes amuse, Queens are her friends. Every child 
dreams of the Empress — radiant beneath her rainbows. 

Some mistake her clarity for cruelty:

“Are you fasting, Sister,” asks the man with dark,
melodic eyes. “Not if I lay the table,” she replies. 

On that day it ends, as one day it must, 
she expects I will be brave.

Take me and plant me in her land. 

Say lemon-tree.  Say lavender.
Cold moon.  Stone arch.  Oregano.