Ignore the statues. Here we have you,
floating face down, not searching Tyne
         for divinity,
         not looking at all,
just floating that marble-firm backside,
   those white thighs splayed in brown.

You died in Egypt, in that huge gap
between the facts called intimacy
         or perhaps the Nile,
         so what's washed you here
beneath our noses at Arbeia
   must be a myth like love.

Some crocodile's flung your guts around
before you got here, or the fingers
         of Hadrian have
         sought out soft omens
caresses couldn't yield, that you'd pass
   passion's liquid thresholds.

Your curls are drenched in more than perfume
and your lips pout with a darker stain,
         a greater vintage
         makes your cheeks hectic
than the supply ship brings: you've joined those
   the gods are sorry died.

Osiris, Dionysus, Hermes:
your soul was told to dwell with them, by
         your emperor, in
         a glut of temples,
a cult flowing like a river past
   the waiting banks of faith.

Those unreflective shores, anxious to
observe updated rituals whether you
         wept into silks with
         joy or not, ageing
with the hard breath of your master on
   your nape, not twenty yet.

Ignore the statues that piece your moods
together, like a mosaic they tramped
         upon for decades:
         concentrate on coins
that hold your godhead, still in the mouths
   of Danube, Tyne, like teats.