After Marc Chagall’s “Sarah and Abimelech”
What kind of fool flings his wife to another man
as if tossing a meaty shank to a drooling wolf,
thinking that will cure its desire to devour the flock?
An old fool with a memory like cheesecloth, that’s who.
He recalls only the donkeys and camels Pharoah gave him,
not my begging him, forehead to the dust, to preserve my honor.
So here I am in the king’s sumptuous bedchamber, half-truths
dripping like honey from my lips. If I were vindictive,
I would know how to repay my husband’s treachery.
But El Shaddai is a righteous judge; ashes still smolder
in the Jordan valley. He will accomplish the promise
concerning me if I bide my time, plying Abimelech with wine,
topping up his cup as he murmurs unearned confidences
in my ear until he is lulled into an uneasy sleep.
The truth of who I am will thunder forth in his dreams.
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
What a joy to be able to hear this voice as if beside me. So appreciate the merging of narrative with lyric and the extension of images along with the formal ambiguity evoked by the three line stanzas.
Beautiful “sanctified imagination” here! Thanks you.
This was terrific! Loved it.