Obituary For A Sphinx Poem by Caroline Misner

She must have had great patience
to preside over me for so long;
she watched the sunset and never questioned it,
she just lay there with that ironic smile
when I staggered home at dawn;
the darkness came early that day
and we haven’t spoken since.

The years rolled like a stone
felled from the side of a mountain,
chipping a path from its summit
like the brittle cracks on her lips.
And then I heard from a friend
that she had lost both breasts to decay;
ashamed, I pretended it never happened.

I’m surprised she doesn’t cry,
that she’s too dry for tears; pity,
for her beauty would be amplified
if only she could weep;
her stone-smooth heart will never
burst or bleed, lest it stain
that same old threadbare couch.

A regal coif upon her chiseled head
like the bust of Nefertiti, only
a little bit lovelier, though she’s
disfigured now by a stray ball
from one of the emperor’s men
that lopped off her nose as clean
as a centurion’s blade, and gleaming
just as boldly.

Age has buffeted her features and seeped
deep into her stone core,
she would shiver if she had the guts;
you would think she would have
grown fat from all those years in repose,
but I saw her picture, and she looks weary
like the years have eroded her down to the marrow.

She has probably forgotten me by now,
sitting there more out of habit than of need,
but perhaps, I think, she may remember me
when I touch her papery hand,
the same fingers that held a cup
of strong tea that rattled in its saucer
as though a current coursed through it.

Here she lies, exhumed from sand
she funnels like the narrow waist
of an hourglass, she keeps smiling
in the aftermath her own self destruction;
so maybe I will go to see her now
and gaze into her brittle casket
and lay gemstones upon her eyes.