Hippopotamus in Blue
They called me Taweret
in the homes of Amarna and Deir el-Medina.
They invoked me as protector
of birth houses and divine infants.
I gave life to Osiris and Amun-Ra
in Karnak’s secret crypts.
The babes suckled at my engorged breasts,
rested their tender heads on my protruding
belly.
With the paws of a lion,
I brandished torches and knives.
With the tail of a crocodile,
I choked Egypt’s enemies,
leaving them in marshes to rot.
They call me William
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I now stand fiercely within glass
underneath hot incandescent bulbs.
I am a big seller in the gift shop
where my sleek faience posterior
decorates pencil cases, bookmarks, paper
weights.
The lotus blossoms splaying my body
stretch across backpacks, plush toys,
T-shirts.
William is awkwardly spelled in
hieroglyphs across cosmetic bags.
Perhaps those museum administrators
were on to something:
In the Middle Kingdom, the male of my species
is a gluttonous menace
whose wide liquid eyes glitter maliciously.
William the Conqueror, William the Bloody—
are these New Yorkers channeling some kind of
cross-cultural archetype?
That must be why my cousin
the sleeping hippopotamus sculpture
is crouched down low on all fours
ready to grab some unsuspecting child’s Barbie
and ravage it if he could only break free
without setting off the alarm.
I remember my early years and
miss the divine life growing in my womb.
I long for the Egyptian sun
to warm my thick face,
yearn to soak my blue skin
in the glimmering Nile.
I wish for a dagger to hurl
against this glass rectangle,
to shatter the pitiful excuses
for suns that heat the back of my neck.
I even ache to get into a
decent fight with a horrified child’s Barbie.
