I've been thinking of Alexander again.
This time, he is twenty-six, or twenty-seven.
From the heavens, he appears a brilliant speck
at the prow of a large, granular moth
crawling across the floor of Lesser Asia.
Alexander still leans forward on Bucephalus
like a hawk thirsting for blood, but something
is changing in him, some almost imperceptible
drift is occurring within his soul, whispering
it is time, that the Gods are waiting for him
just to the east, and that one day he will wake
as if from another body, and the great army
all around him will fall from his shoulders
like a dry, weightless husk, and one
by one, the bright caravans of cargo
trailing back to Aristotle will stutter, and disappear, like embers in the wind, and he will ride out
onto the endless savannahs
bordering the Great Stream of Ocean
and the tall grass all around him
will suddenly comb and divide, like a
slithering of snakes and an opening will appear
just above his eyes and the huge horse
beneath him, the spleen and the lungs and the
cock and the foam-crazed mouth
will rise up inside him
like a dark rush of cries
until there is but the one body,
until there is but the one great heart.