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23 Cleopatra’s Bra It is one thing to uphold one’s passions, another to retain them. That thin seam between impassioned and fashion: it could be just another form of governing, intimacy. Who knows if sequins spiraled around each nipple, lapis clinging to straps. Each mouthful of wine would raise her body heat until a touch of gold slivered and rose off her dark skin, caught somewhere in a jewel of sweat. This is the Egypt I imagine: pyramids, obelisks, the Valley of Kings, and one torn bra. Meanwhile, the Romans fashioned their parchment, filled it with long strings of letters: a for ave, b for beato (blessed), c, of course, for Caesar, with no space between, as to appear infinite. Augustus did try. The old argument: come home, she’s bad news. But for Antony there would be no empire cloven: a pregnant dream as he lay again with her, clothes strewn on the ground like artifacts of a forgotten city under ash, and those two bodies caught once more, together, for all of Rome to see. Because it did end, Virgil says, in ruins of a city, toppled towers, and one fictitious Dido who let it all hang out 24 one Carthage summer so hot the oarsmen gave up their fears, Acestes descended his throne without bearskin, Aeneas loved and left, Dido died. I like to imagine her scrawling a message to the future regarding love— flagrant love—and sacrificial fires like those she clothed her city in one night: Beware the Roman come to lie with you, one hand heart-heavy and bound there like the swearing-in of a city official. Feeling her lover fiddle with the clasp, Cleopatra must have thought, does everything come undone with this one small breach of virtue? One giant step backward, she hears the inevitable unleashing of the dogs, the centuries head to toe in armor, and the lift, they say, of a shallow wicker basket. I like to imagine her calmly spreading her robe, a leisurely cup of wine, her fingers unclasping the bra from behind as the asp negotiates the sea of azure silk that separates them, empires colliding, and the golden tint of scales. ...

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