from the king's book of numbers
For in your house of stone
by the great road
you listened once to refugee voices
at dawn telling of massacres and plagues
in their land across seven rivers
Like a hornbill in flight
you tucked in your slippered feet
from the threshold
out of their beseeching gaze
But pestilence farther
than faraway tales of dawn
had bought a seat in Ogun's reckless
chariot and knocks by nightfall
on your iron gate.
Take heart oh chief; decimation
by miscount, however grievous,
is a happy retreat from bolder
uses of the past. Take heart,
for these scribal flourishes
behind smudged entries, these
trophied returns of clerical headhunters
can never match the quiet flow
of red blood.
But if my grudging comfort fail,
then take this long and even view to A.D. 2010
when the word is due to go out again
and—depending on which Caesar
orders the count—new conurbations
may sprout in today's wastelands,