Which never vulgar eye would again behold

Day Twenty-Three

I.

I am Foremost of Noble Ladies

Hatshepsut, of the

Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.

They call mine a female kingship;

Fool, History claims me

As the first of His Great Women.

In the Valley of the Kings,

I am obliged to wear a beard.

II.

I am Sacagawea

Indentured to a useless man

And married to

An undertaking of men, who

Concern themselves with maps

And botony. My only office is

The daily prevention of their murders

By the many deadly perils

of the Bitterroot Mountains.

This will be known

As the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

III.

I was barely given provenance of Mrs.

The remainder of my name

Drowning in the drink

With my no-good husband.

So, as with any bravery 

or wit that was mine,

Whatever I was Christened is now lost.

For two hundred years

he lurked in a ledger

Before being digitised.