Weathered hands scrape unctuous saps 

Of the bleeding herbs

Fetched from the Orient in poultices

To be wrapped around the supple flesh

Of Elagabalus 

 

While censers burn cyprian resins, 

Kissing adonic lips of charioteers and senators

Who coyly part the gossamer silks

In order to catch a glimpse of the lithe silhouette 

Of the Queen of Hierocles 

 

Each night consorting with Cybele 

Under the forgiving cloak of pitch, 

Yearning to live as a priestess lives

Selling skin to mouths 

And mouthing promises

To those cold, darting tongues

Affixed to pigs in the shapes of men 

Outside the refuge of a palace

In the hope of becoming closer to God 

 

That some sibyl-crone by temples’ light 

Might cradle the shame 

Between the emperor’s legs 

And crush it betwixt two stones

Her bony hands trembling 

In rapturous elation  

 

A head mired with the bureaucracy

Of foolish wars and vapid famine

Floats on epithets and libel that

 

        Ricochet

 

Off the cool, marble walls 

Gilded and bejeweled with blood stones

What strange power to behold 

 

In insipid flair she gestures for 

The pulling of a velvet chord

Watching with relish 

As impartial petals of violet and rose 

Scatter like redolent stars —

 

                                                         A smothering

 

Cries of her naysayers 

Drowned out by snowy silence;

 

This is a woman’s work