Pharaoh’s Dream

Pharaoh woke each night
As wet as a lung
Dreaming of children
Devouring ears
Of corn —
Corn on the cob — on a lawn
Like locusts
Extracting the kernels
Like teeth from a jaw
Yellow and white
And dreamt each night
of children eating ears
of men
And searching for,

and removing, kernels of corn
From excrement
Such was the famine’s extent
That enveloped them
And the road that led
In a line from the lawn
The very road he was still speeding along

 

Elliot Sperber is a writer, attorney, and adjunct professor. He lives in New York City and can be reached at elliot.sperber@gmail.com and on twitter @elliot_sperber