Leaving Egypt

I carry Egypt with me
in a drawstring pocket
that I keep close at my side,
so that I can feel the nestled weight
of its sand and stone
and endless servitude.
Sometimes I run my thumb
along its gathered edge,
wondering if I should -
if maybe I could -
open that pocket,
just for a minute,
quick-like and easy,
so that I might feel
those sharp-edged stones,
Sun-warmed and ancient
and well-trodden
by Pharaohs and asps.

But I don't. I think the
stones might cut me,
or perhaps spill out:
All that sand and stone
that hangs so heavy at my waist,
that bows me just a bit
and fits against me just so,
It might scatter in a graceful arc
as I imagine river once did,
to escape the narrow banks
that bound it
and bent it,
shedding its great crocodile tears
Of feast and famine
in a sudden burst of freedom.

And just like that,
Egypt would lie strewn about,
Scattered by my stumbling feet
In some trackless wilderness
that has been trampled
by the feet of a thousand generations since
And by the time I stop
to do the math of
all those feet
and all that wilderness,
There would be nothing
left of Egypt,
and my drawstring pocket
would be
Empty.