So out of death, she breathes
him into life, a shadow
larger than the sun. She
is wrapped in cloth of gold
waiting on her barge.
This Antony is more than
Roman. He is her match.
Dolabella, still human, cannot
understand. Antony is dead.
She cannot hold him. And Rome
persists, belongs to Caesar.
But she is Cleopatra. Unrehearsed,
Alone. Darkness, rising from the
Nile, the shifting monuments
of sand. What does she
see or hear in all that unforgiving
blackness? Not Caesar, who has
won, nor even Antony, who is,
at last, like her: untouchable.
Whatever's there or absent
she must love. And so she turns
to absence, begins her journey
toward the place which will
extend to meet her. Easily
she fits the golden collar
to her throat. Then ebony,
amber, at each wrist. She is
smiling as she reaches up,
unbinds her dress.
Out of that long Egyptian night
she brings to her own death,
herself. In the final moments
before her chambered walls
dissolve, she sees it:
her barge, gleaming,
in the clear, unanchored night.