Cleopatra's Apprentice

An unknown fact: Cleopatra had an apprentice

He’d kneel beside her and serve her vinegar-and-pearl concoctions

in canopic jars adorned with the head of Anubis painted in blood

She took him as her lover and doused him with power

and thought Julius Caesar had nothing on him

She wrung his innocence out right through his eyes—

Burned it and kept the ashes in her mausoleum heart

She taught him many things and he ruled as her secret king

He served her well; his Goddess, his Isis incarnate

and in turn, she loved him completely

When she died he spread rose petals at her feet and took his memories to scribes

who copied his embellishments into print and made her truly immortal

His tears, they drowned her palace which sits still on the ocean floor

his own private Atlantis, he haunts it eternally