1. Preparations for the Journey

Not resting but
moving her lovely butt,
the Queen of Sheba,
having decided to leave, a-
rose from her lair
among dark spells, tossed her hair,
clapped her hands, 
the servants fainted, and 
already she drew in the sand
with her big toe:
King Solomon, as though
he were a rubber ball, an 
apocalyptic, bearded herring, an
imperial walking-stick, an
amalgam, half chicken
and half Solomon.

The minster of protocol
went too far, with all
those peacocks and ivory boxes.
Later on,
she began to yawn
deliciously, she stretched like a cat
so that
he would be able to sniff
her odif-
erous heart. They spared no expense,
they brought feathers, to tickle
his ears, to make his last defense
prickle.
She had been brought
a vague report
about circumcision,
she wanted to know everything, with absolute precision,
her curiosity blossomed like leprosy,
the disheveled sisters of her corpuscles
screamed through their loudspeaker into all her muscles,
the sky undid
its buttons, she made herself up and slid
into a vast commotion,
felt her head
spin, all the brothels of her emotions
were lit up in red.
In the factory
of her blood, they worked frantically
till night came: a dark night, like an old table,
a night as eternal
as a jungle.


2. The Ship Waits

A ship in the harbor. Night.
Among the shadows, a white

ship, with a cargo of yearnings, 
some temperate, some burning,

a ship that desire launches, 
a ship without a subconscious.

Already among the sails
sway the Queen's colored veils,

made of the silk of sparrows
who had died of their tiny sorrows

before they could flutter forth
to the cool lands of the North.

It's worthwhile, at any rate
for the white ship to wait

cheek to cheek with the dock
and let itself gently rock

between ideas of sand
and ideas of ocean, and

endure its insomnia 
till morning, etc.


3. Setting Sail

She called her thighs to return to each other,
knee-cheek to knee-cheek, and her soul
was already a zebra of moods, good and bad.
In the oven of her body, her heart
rotated on a spit. The morning screamed,
a tropical rain fell.

The forecasters, chained to the spot, forecasted,
the engineers of her sleep went out on weary camels,
all the little fish of her laughter fled 
before the shark of her awakening rage. In her armpits
faint-hearted corals hid,
night-lizards left their footprints on her belly.

She sat in bed, sharpening her charms and her riddles
like colored pencils. From the beards
of old blowhards, she had had an African apron made,
her secrets were embroidered on scarves.

But the lions still held the laws
like the two tablets over the holy ark
and over the whole world.


4. The Journey on the Red Sea

Fish blew through the sea and through
the long anticipation. Captains
plotted their course by the map
of her longing. Her nipples preceded her like scouts,
her hairs whispered to one another
like conspirators. In the dark corners between sea and ship
the counting started, quietly.
A solitary bird sang
In the permanent trill of her blood. Rules fell
from biology textbooks, clouds were torn like contracts,
at noon she dreamt about 
making love in the snow, egg yolks dripping
down her leg, the thrill of yellow beeswax. All the air
rushed to be breathed inside her. The sailors cried out
in the foreign language of fish.

But underneath the world, underneath the sea,
there were cantillations as if on the Sabbath:
everything sang each other.


5. Solomon Waits


Never any rain, 
never any rain,
always clouds without closure,
always raw-voiced love.

Shepherds of the wind returned
from the pasture.
In the world's court-
yards, blossoms of stone opened
consecrated to strange gods.
Trembling ladders dreamt about 
humans dreaming about them.

But he
saw the world,
the slightly torn
lining of the world.
And was awake like many lit stables
in Megiddo.

Never any rain,
never any rain,
always raw-voiced love,
always quarries.


6. The Queen Enters the Throne Room

The dewy rose of her dark pudenda
was doubled in the mirrored floor. His agenda

seemed superfluous now, and all the provisions
he had made for her, the decrees and decisions

he had worked out while he was judging the last
of the litigants. Then he rolled up his past

like a map, and he sat there, reeling, giddy,
and saw in the mirror a body and a body.

from above and below, like the queen of spades.
In the bedroom of his heart he pulled down the shades,

he covered his blood with sackcloth, tried
to think of icebergs, of putrefied

camel flesh. And his face changed seasons
like a speeded-up landscape. He followed his visions

to the end of them, growing wiser and warm,
and he knew that her soul's form was like the form

of her supple body, which he soon would embrace--
as a violin's form is the form of its case.

7. Who Could Stump Whom.

In the pingpong of questions and answers
not a sound was heard
except:
ping ... pong ...
And the cough of the learned counselors
and the sharp tearing of paper.

He made black waves with his beard
so that her words would drown in it.
She made a jungle
of her hair, for him to be lost in.
Words were plunked down with a click
like chessmen.
Thoughts with high masts
sailed past one another.
Empty crossword puzzles filled up
as the sky fills with stars,
secret caches were opened,
buckles and vows were unfastened,
cruel religions
were tickled, and laughed
horribly.
In the final game,
her words played with his words, her tongue
with his tongue.
Precise maps
were spread, face up, on the table.
Everything was revealed. Hard.
And pitiless.


8. The Empty Throne Room

All the word games
lay scattered out of their boxes.
Boxes were left gaping
after the game.

Sawdust of questions, 
shells of cracked parables,
woolly packing materialis from
crates of fragile riddles.

Heavy wrapping paper
of love and strategies.
Used solutions rustled
in the trash of thinking.

Long problems
were rolled up on spools,
miracles were locked in their cages.
Chess horses were led back to the stable.

Empty cartons that had
"Handle with care!"
printed on them
sang hymns of thanksgiving.

Later in ponderous parade, the King's soldiers arrived.
She fled, sad
as black snakes
in the dry grass.

A moon of atonement spun around the towers
as on Yom Kippur eve.
Caravans with no camels, no people,
no sound, departed and departed and departed.