Suppose Passover was meant
not
To celebrate our escape but
To mourn the Egyptians, drowned
In the Red Sea? Fat Ahmosis, say, whose death
Made the ribbon sellers weep for days;
Ya-aton, who might have been a priest;
Smard, who'd actually been a priest
Until he used crooked dice to gamble
Against the gods of daylight;
Sakhmet, who always dreamed of birds
And knew a good cure for hangovers.
Doing their jobs, all of them, and only
Slightly more guilty than the firstborn
They found waiting in the Field of Reeds.
To celebrate our escape but
To mourn the Egyptians, drowned
In the Red Sea? Fat Ahmosis, say, whose death
Made the ribbon sellers weep for days;
Ya-aton, who might have been a priest;
Smard, who'd actually been a priest
Until he used crooked dice to gamble
Against the gods of daylight;
Sakhmet, who always dreamed of birds
And knew a good cure for hangovers.
Doing their jobs, all of them, and only
Slightly more guilty than the firstborn
They found waiting in the Field of Reeds.
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