Tuesday, January 08, 2019

As Numberless As the Stars

Hagar didn’t care for the manchild much,
The one whose dam she wasn’t.  In the star-
Personable nighttime sky she reckoned
The number of descendants he’d been promised,
And every one an uninvited guest.
Me, I try to avoid the sin of counting.
It leads to lust and envy.  I have named
More women than I knew, and they are glad,
Or so they say, when they imagine me.
They think about the child who isn’t there,
The period they never missed, the pain
Promised them, that they passed on, and they smile
And smooth their hair and think about the days
When boys would gasp because they happened by.

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