The tooth in her hand from the left side of her mouth
reminds Nummis-tet she is aging,
and she sighs into the swatch of wind on her face.
More than three hundred times her servant-name stands
in the records beside the amount of wool doled out
from the stores of the god, and the length, pattern,
and quality of the cloth she made for him,
and her month’s allowance of spelt and barley,
dates, cheese, and cooking-butter.
Her hands are supple with wool-grease, callused
from spinning and weaving. Sometimes still
it is joyful service, but “grudging fingers
clothe Nummis nonetheless,” and if the women
gossip or sing bawdy songs when no one else hears,
the weave is just as fine. Near the end
of a dutiful month, with the quota well exceeded,
the painted boards and pebbles might come out
for a few rounds of dogs-and-goats.
Upon an avenue wide as a river
the temple doors open: the tall pair arched
and adorned with copper and gold for entry
with offerings of praise and glorification,
the plain one for those begging favor.
Lapis and jasper encrust the walls of the great room, where,
beyond the drain for poured wine, the image
of great Nummis stands, hawk on his head,
fish in one hand, horned ibex at either side.
But behind his back the temple precinct
is factories and expanding archives,
storehouses swallowing porters with sacks and jars,
a tangle of alleys where even the wind
gets lost and doubles back. Here Nummis-tet
stops, slap against a memory,
and lets out a laughing breath. She was a girl
just high as a ewe’s back, her tongue taste-feeling
the raw sore gum where a tooth had been—
the old moment falls open, smell of irrigated earth,
the gray cloth around her neck, heel of bread in her hand,
yellow evening under clouds like hills turned over.
But nothing comes to her, nothing at all,
of what she did or knew before or after. Why should that be?
Strange as a single brick where a wall once stood,
or just one tablet in place of a full year’s records.
How could that be? She watches a wisp of dust,
badgered by wind, rise and walk down the alley.