CROCODILE

Cancer is the crocodile

in the Nile of your familiar body

green and long and pale

slim with death thought

hungrier than the river

that is you

You who once ate

langoustines and cracked crab

Moroccan oranges and black chocolate

after white wine of the Loire

and wished only for cool sheets

and deep sure sleep after the Nubian

tiptoed off the pebbled shore

dazzling your skin with

moonkiss and nightshade

                                   Sleep river

the crocodile yawns in your easy flow

sleep the sleep of old Nile

the gods of death are dead

Pharaoh and his scribes are cased in glass

the pyramids have no meaning beyond

their immensity

You are an old river

you are the Nile and the crocodile

cancer is in your blood

slow and heavy as green opium

it grows like a river in flood

it grows

a sphinx face

You are an old woman

with death in your bones

you are the Nile

you are green and long and pale

slim with death thought

you are the crocodile