The Redaction

By James Reidel

The Redaction
after Cavafy

The tetrarch paused and raised both hands so that his entourage had to a stop behind him, all save twin sisters who still carried his long towel like a train, for they had been blinded at birth so as to knead white skin like fresh dough without casting those smiles from the south. One stumbled against his arm and her bare breast brush his elbow. Then all stood still. Only the court eunuch motioned, an entreaty to prompt the next aphorism, which his master wanted for his histories, in a meter suited for demotic sensibilities. Before him ran the long mosaic, which meandered from the baths to the castle. His various cities along the river, their names in Greek, each represented by one or two of their
famous buildings, the, great lighthouse with its flame lit by tiny yellow stones, the dome of the library that resembled a goat’s teat. Then the tetrarch pointed to the river, whose brown waters glistened in depiction, set in lapis, unlike itself even under the bluest skies. But it was impossible for the eunuch to follow his master’s gaze, biting a stylus, hurriedly smearing a wax tablet with both thumbs, from AN EMPIRE ONLY EXTENDS AS FAR AS ITS WORMS to THERE PALESTINA/THERE GOD FIGHTS
HIS COCKS.