in love with egypt
when everyone fawned over the tropics
i was the girl that fell in love
with egypt,
and i wanted to know all her secrets
to see into the heart of pyramids;
and to discern the wisdom
of dead and ancient pharaohs—
cleopatra stole my heart when i was twelve,
and she and her country have never
given it back;
i want to see the nile but i can go without
seeing it’s crocodiles,
and i want to see the pyramids
ditch the tour guide and find out secrets that no one
was able to decipher in the past because
mystery intrigues me—
want to dig out the heart of egypt and see what it
means,
to see with pyramid eyes
dance with pyramid legs and feel the rays of ra
against my face.
Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015.
Copyright © 2016 by Linda M. Crate
Randomly Accessed Poetics 