Watching Television in Hieroglyphics
Olivia Murphy
At first, stars were the only worship
because the writing was already
on the wall. Eventually we got
Osiris and his 14-piece body but
at first, things were
simple. The pilot
light flickering on when Sirius
first winked into man’s eye.
That wonderful blank hindsight.
We pawed at abacuses,
chiseled poems into sandstone,
counted scarab legs.
It was all good morning cats
and crocodiles
teeth. I had the hottest new fruit
since kiwi. Honey from a bush
you’ve only heard about around
the bonfire, opium that’d make you see
new fundamental particles.
Back then, I controlled nights
with the spotlight heat
of my hip bone.
Imagine the first taste
of butter on dry bread – such
was my richness. How I wanted
to throw an arm around a scribe
and claim him, make myself
goddess like Elizabeth Taylor
or Lucy goofing hearthside and oven-warm.
Those men, the smooth sand dune
wigs and coal eyes black
as the ibis’ beak, those arms threshing
wheat beading sweat
salty as pigeon and fuul,
the incredible junctures of staff
and crook like bread
pudding and Umm Ali. The stars foretold it
because they all foretell a connection, then
explosion, a chronology compacted
to the instant of fingertip on fingertip,
black splitting into static.
We knew then that chakras
are only glands, rebranded
and technicolored. Food to mouth and mouth
to flesh was the hardwood of our immaculate
foyer. Ah, to get back
to the pure spirituality:
Orion looseming his belt,
seagulls scattering out
and fading into the sunset
like a laugh track.
Spring, 2017 Issue