he [d]re[a]members the rain. it greens the dunes before him into reed and grass and grain. he listens to its patter[n] on the leaves, feels rivulets t[r]ickle his sides. a lake—not so long distant—glistens moonlit; ripples roll and glide. the breeze is fragrant, cool and clean, soft with dew these moments before dawn. but slowly, sunship’s prow crests into day, and with light falling in his face, Sphynx fe[r]e[a]l[ize]s water’s long been gone.
there are no streams. there is no green. the wind blows dry, and gritty, and hard. and he, once called the living image, sits still in sunstruck stone. his head is whittled, shrunken out of measure with his trunk; his face is marred.
he moves through his memory, millenium by minute, from his birth in time of water and black earth, the drying days, the incursion of sand and his burial within it, his punctuated excavation, the recarving and revering, the years of offerings and incense, their slow disappearing, the neglect and defacement in spite, the return to a sandcovered night, and finally, exposure to light and the coming of crowds—such small men, and so loud—first to chip away, and then to rope off, gab and gawk.
he relives it all, [re]counts each rising sun, and when he’s done he sees his present clear: the time has come, at last, to wake and walk.
from beneath the second skin, the calcified crust, a chthonic thrumming grow[l]slowly stronger, shaking off the desert dust. a cleft appears along one outstretched arm, cracks open by the paw; tawny fur shows through, and unsheathed claw. across the face a fissure splits, and an almond-shaped slab comes down crashing. an eye looks out, golden and vertically slit: focusing, and fastening, and flashing.
Sphynx considers the sun. he studies the sands. he heeds his horizon.
red earth rumbles, stone shell crumbles, and he stands.