Why did she come to the New World, this mummy, this subject of spectacle
sleeping in her full ornament of gray gauze,
an imaginary life in a museum display case?
I think mummification is contrary to immortality
because a preserved corpse will never be a part of a rose.
The mummy did not choose migration, but those who waited in long lines
at consulates and built houses in other countries
still dream of returning when they become corpses.
—You have to take us there!
This is what they instruct in wills they hang around their children’s necks
as if death is an unfinished identity
that matures only in the family burial plot.
Why Did She Come?
AuthorIman Mersal