According to Herodotus

The Phoenicians were good at trenches. A channel

with steep sides often broke, they saw, so

they knew to widen out near the lip.

If they were digging waterways, about twice as wide

as volume demanded was optimal

for coursing.

With bridges, not so much. Built a couple crossing

a strait, one made of flax, and the other,

papyrus. That is history. A paper bridge

didn’t hold, though, after a storm, doesn’t. That

is engineering. The final chariot

is the chariot befitting the king, carted right up

to overlook what he had arranged

to surpass. Wouldn’t. That’s policy.

A people far from sovereign.

Good at trenches, bad at bridges.

On the job after the ransack and pillage

of another people. Only in Arizona and only now

is Phoenician a demonym. I mean, what I heard is

there was no Phoenix home

to Phoenicians destroying Greece

for Persia. Only a story of a bird upstart

where another bird burned. Demonym has its own

Wikipedia page. The word is

twenty-two years old. Imagine your own

twenty-two year old [demonym here] here:

curly hair, lashes, headphones if you like.

Tell him, if you like, learning where he’s from,

what he is. Now imagine

learning where he’s from, being what you are,

sending him back. That is

statecraft.