Unreliable Narration

Of Mina-sarpilili-anda II,

the only surviving record

is this splendid bas-relief in which

he presses the neck of his Hittite foe

beneath one battle-shod foot

while minions shoulder the spoils

of a conquered city.

                                                                   In fact

there was no war that year; a bored stone-carver

was looking for preferment. He received

an allowance of good wine.

In a perfumed cloud of dust

that loitered over the plain,

Hittite ambassadors came to the king

with golden bells and rosewater candy,

birds in cages and spotted cats,

and departed in peace. The king was beloved,

laughed often, feared nothing, and died in his bed

of poison.

                                  A carnelian image

of his second-best wife,

accurate to the last mole, was plucked

from the dirt by a boy tending goats, sold,

and spirited out of the country, rolled in a rug,

on a ship that sank on a cloudless day.

An image of his first wife, in chrysoprase,

lies tightly packed in buried rubble

for the next generation of archaeologists—

should they prove worthy,

persistent,

and slyer than goatherds.