LAST AFTERNOON IN ASWAN

Tourists standing at the edge

of an ancient quarry pit

toss their almost-empty

water bottles, de-strawed,

at a small brown dog lying

on his side, asleep, sick, or

dying. Not one of them takes

a picture. They already have

hundreds of timeless shots

of Old Kingdom mummies,

unfinished obelisks,

armed guards in the streets.

They signed up for this tour

as an easy summer way

to teach the children history,

Isis and Osiris, the lower

and upper Nile, east bank

for birth, west for death.

Together, all families learn:

climbing a pyramid means

tunneling through a tomb. Now

the youngest ones are questioning

which heaven to believe in,

raising from recent memory

those old, favorite toys

of their pet in the kennel.

They grow uneasy as the adults

wait for a happy ending,

as bottles in the dust pile up

near ruins of momuments.

WHAT COMES FROM SIGNATURES

Treaties and pre-

nuptual agreements,

birth certificates,

divorce proceedings.

Treaties and child

custody arrangements,

day care contracts,

purity pledges.

Treaties and soccer team

codes of honor,

college scholarships,

loan registrations.

Treaties and mottos

of Greek sororities,

then old boy networks,

job applications.

Managerial agreements

with new workers,

union contracts.

Treaties of the first

settled dispute, then

the second, then the third.

Retirement packages.

Wills and re-written

wills and testaments,

pre-paid funeral bills.

Do-not-resuscitate orders.

Death bed treaties

to repay all the parties

you cheated. By then--

too late for any entreaties

with the Devil.

He's already got

your John Hancock.