You are knit from the ancient sands, desert dust spun from lapis lazuli and peridot, a constellation of chalcedonies. And I have written my lamentations across your torso: pleas against scorpions, petitions against striking serpents. Your own primordial incantations transform your limbs to feathered wings; now a falcon, now a Bennu bird, spindly-legged ibis with a long beak foraging for frogs. They found millions of these birds, mummified under ages of stone and sun. Shapeshifters, transforming time itself. I give you my handful of amulets, amethyst pendants to jewel your jutting collarbone, talismans meant to tame. These hieroglyphs of mine feebly attempt the encryption of destiny, aim to make myth of the ways I will lose you to lesser gods. I wanted you certain and valiant, a protector instead of a warning. As if my abracadabra holds any sway at all in fate and her mysteries. As if a mortal like me could somehow keep a river or a storm.

*Basalt torso of Pa-Maj with carvings of magical spells

Ancient Egyptian sculpture, Ptolemaic 30th Dynasty, ca. 350-300 BCE;
inventory #1065 at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Image downloaded from The Egyptian Museum (aka Cairo Museum):
https://egypt-museum.com/male-torso-with-magic-spells-engraved/

Bio: Lorette C. Luzajic