Say slay, hieratic water killer, why don’t you?
his aeolian taunt from deep in the tamarisk
guides her to where he lies forgotten

The water priestess has no form and he, banished
from the temple since before its song-words
were written, no name

Enki’s children are dying in the city of a slow thirst
for the melody that was scorched from the land,
only the fluid core of the nameless one can save them

She glides over contours of his face seeking a way to enter
unaware that a foothold will turn her to stone,
that she might as well say slay

He, in the snarled thicket, watches as a demotic hole
opens him up, allows her level to impose
might he be the one to say slay?

 As blood drenches the land Enki’s children
will never know who it was said slay