georginasand | To Kai-i-Nefri: A Museum Mummy (Reply)

A catch-up sonnet from last week. I decided to bag the Big Tent prompt for this week and instead wrote about the mummy in the Egyptian gallery of the museum I work it. I may or may not have written this sonnet surreptitiously while on post--I didn't get caught, which is what counts. The idea came to me when I heard a grown man (wearing a "Pirate for Hire" t-shirt) say of the Egyptian collection, that the magical value that the objects had for ancient Egyptians is largely disregarded. While mulling that fact over, I became increasingly frustrated with the visitors response to our mummy, Kai-i-Nefri. First of all, yes, folks it's a real mummy; if the label says human remains, it's human remains. Secondly, everyone seemed to react with either horror (ew, gross, dead body) or awe (look at the really old thing from an exotic culture), which it is. But it's also the body of a human being. We know he died unnaturally young, probably late 20s, and I wished someone would look at that mummy and see a son, or brother, or at the very least a human being. And rather than strangle the next 13 year-old girl who said "Ew, gross," I wrote a sonnet.

To Ka-i-Nefri: A Museum Mummy

Human remains, resin, and linen, you

arm-bound and organ-less were not the child

of this modern, marble, jungle. So few

here are native; most were bought or guiled.

Like you, their magic is over-analyzed,

your painted prayers, more unnoticed than mocked.

“They once did believe:” in past-tense eulogized

are you as awestruck children watch you rot.

In you the crowd sees only their bad dreams,

not your nightmares. The plexi-glass does not

disturb you rest, but against you it schemes