The bright mirror I braved; the devil in it

Loved me like my soul; my soul

Now that I seek myself in a Serpent

My smile is fatal.


Nile moves in me; my thighs splay

Into the squalled Mediterranean.

My brain hides in that Abyssinia

Lost armies foundered towards.


Desert and river unwrinkle again

Seeming to bring them the waters

that make drunk. Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank.

Now let the snake reign.


A half-deity out of Capricorn this rigid Augustus mounts

With his sword virginal indeed!

And has shorn summarily

The moon-horned river


From my bed. May the moon ruin him with virginity!

Drink me, now, whole, with coiled Egypt's past

Then from my Delta swim

Like a fish toward Rome.