I heaved my thick world history book
above my classmates’ heads. It arced,
flapped open, boomed against the blackboard.
Two girls screamed, all the tough boys laughed,
and I felt pretty good until someone,
as always, told. Old Parker let me choose:
five swats or five dull hours copying
from history books. And thus I learned,
in Egypt we’d have painted
a butchershop on Mother’s tomb
so she would not be forced, in death,
to eat her excrement. Instead,
when we looked down the hill we saw
heat shimmer in the Big K parking lot.
And right in front of us we saw
a closed steel casket. Some lost Egyptian myths
exist as openings—and nothing else—
scratched out by punished schoolboys.
And at my desk, pencil in hand,
I wished for a more brutal teacher,
one who had lashed those slack boys till
they’d written all of it, from start
to ever-after. We squirmed on folding chairs
and watched my father’s brother preach
too long. Grandmother sulked because
my father hadn’t let her choose
the funeral dress. In Egypt, we’d seal
her organs in canopic jars,
except the heart, which stays in place.
We’d pack the corpse with natron, rub
spice, resin, ointment into it.
Inside the linen strips, we’d tuck
gold amulets and scarabs. We sat
on rusty folding chairs—four boys,
one man. I tried to pray for her.