CLEOPATRA AT MERSA MATRUH

By Anne Whitehouse

PROMPT — The way I see it ...

So many shades of blue

existing together

in a sea of clear water

rippling over a beach

of fine white sand.

A massive rock rose

out of the sea,

hollowed by the slow

grind of erosion

into three natural rooms.

In one, a sunken pool

emptied and filled

as the tide ebbed and flowed.

It was here, to her capital,

Mersa Matruh, that Cleopatra

retreated with Antony

after the disaster at Actium,

knowing she’d be blamed for the defeat.

All day she bathed in the limpid pool

or sat in the sheltered cool.

She gazed up at the strange shapes

of the water-and-wind-worn rocks,

bright in the blaze of morning,

violet gray in the dimming light.

---

Anne Whitehouse is the author of poetry collections: The Surveyor’s Hand, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, Meteor Shower, Outside from the Inside, and Steady, as well as the art chapbooks, Surrealist Muse (about Leonora Carrington), Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, Being Ruth Asawa, and Adrienne Fidelin Restored. She writes from New York, New York.