I am the Sphinx. <br />I am the woman buried in sand <br />up to her chin. <br />I am waiting for an archaeologist <br />to unearth me, <br />to dig out my neck & my nipples, <br />bare my claws <br />& solve my riddle. <br /> <br />No one has solved my riddle <br />since Oedipus. <br /> <br />I face the pyramids which rise <br />like angular breasts <br />from the dry body of Egypt. <br />My fertile river is flowing down below- <br />a lovely lower kingdom. <br />Every woman should have a delta <br />with such rich silt- <br />brown as the buttocks <br />of Nubian queens. <br /> <br />O friend, why have you come to Egypt? <br />Aton & Yahweh <br />are still feuding. <br />Moses is leading his people <br />& speaking of guilt. <br />The voice out of the volcano <br />will not be still. <br /> <br />A religion of death, <br />a woman buried alive. <br />For thousands of years <br />the sand drifted over my head. <br />My sex was a desert, <br />my hair more porous than pumice, <br />& nobody sucked my lips <br />to make me tell. <br /> <br />The pyramid breasts, though huge, <br />will never sag. <br />In the center of each one, <br />a king lies buried. <br />In the center of each one, <br />a darkened chamber. . . <br />a tunnel, <br />dead men's bones, <br />malignant gold.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/egyptology/
