THE MUSEUM ISSUE Saundra Rose Maley   Walking Toward King Tutankhamun Some thirty years have passed since first I walked With thousands, toward your mask. Your toys still lie As if at any moment you will come To play despite the tiny caskets that hold Your sacred parts, so carefully removed And guarded by the gods. ..............................................In which small cage Did they place your soul, your Ba, a bird? Boy King, This time I come to ask—is there a crossing over Or is this life just what it is, a sandal strap At best? Tell me, did the fluttering bird escape And fly above the leveling sands? I lift my face into your mirror. You are still nineteen and I am not. Saundra Rose Maley is co-editor of A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright and of Solitary Apprenticeship: James Wright and German Poetry. She teaches at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland.   Published in Volume 10, Number 1, Winter 2009.   Read more by this author: Saundra Rose Maley Maley's Introduction to Vol. 6, No. 1, The Whitman Issue (Winter 2004) Saundra Rose Maley: Tenth Anniversary Issue