Jesse Glass/ poem

The insect with its mouth of dust

Lifts its head and trumpets down

Upon us where we shiver here

Within the anteroom of Thoth



Here the whisper of despair

With its reeds and iron hooks;

The cracked paint box that gives the lie

To lips stacked in a wooden box



Here domed head & hollow chest

Fall to zero; there the stalks

of syllogisms twist & crack

Beneath the heels of those that walk



Down the airless corridors

Daedal fingers engineless

Processing round the graven walls

In a route that light transgresses



No honeycombs grow in their throats

But the wasps' tripartite crib

Would mark the frontier of the night

If these ancient blocks were split.


To draw the shadow of the sphinx

Across the bubble brow of doubt;

A lash of desert air, a loom

Of moonlight and a distant shout.