Scarabs crawled out of my eyes
like tears; they locked me in with him –
.
like I was promised flesh to pass
on from ruler to priest to corpse –
.
I kept guard of tomb, resin and scraps,
the stench that tied their rumbling bones
.
longing for resurrection – what would they
know of souls pulled out of pits of hell –
.
how the undead crunched their fingers
around their legs, and the ankle feast
.
where they crawled on knees to their own
feet where their tendons sputtered
.
like fresh crackling; their teeth sinking
into bitter juices of the steps they took
.
towards my body as if it was worship
to lash whips at my skin, and my screams
.
a melody to the strings in their instruments.
I only asked – priest of my heart – to be given
.
the scythe of Anubis; the power of sand
to swallow their lands of gold they adorned
.
my body in for leisure, then sparring,
finally burial of their day’s defeated toiling.
.
He upsurged black shadows to descend
like tidal waves – revenge for tainting
.
what was his – altar – until they caught us
and locked us together in a scarab-grave.
.
This will be my third rebirth. I can hear
his trance; tremors of the tomb’s opening
.
lock; the rise of my name causing scarabs
to spill and scatter in fear – Ankhesenamun –
.
Anubis gathering its army,
gong of Imhotep’s cry regurgitating –
“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).
Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.
Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Spreading the Writer's Word 
This is just so good – the imagery is so brutal but the language is so beautiful.
A fantastic weaving of images in poetry.
sheer excellence: the scythe of Anubis; the power of sand
to swallow their lands of gold … fine work, Sheika!