She leans
over a large round bowl
whose inner wall
carries crude images
of Sumerian animals:

a green-tongued lion,
falcon wings,
face exploding into a mane
of jumbled lapis hairs,

a frisky griffin
thin feathered paws,
his catfish fin
halted near the nose

of a prancing antelope,
a bearded snake
writhes
on the golden slope
of her back.

The animals stand still,
frightened by the outpour
of a clanging crystal
cascade of water
twined
with pitch-black hair:

like good and evil
entangled
in a deadly knot,
rushing to create
some new world.