Five Poems by Lou Ella Hickman

 Texts for “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” by James Lee III (B. 1975)

1. after eve…then what?

like words spoken once

then forgotten

we lived

we lived in the ordinary

wives, mothers, sisters…

a world whose honor or shame would lie

in what was begotten

countless as words in books

we, the paradox of the obvious, the mundane

 words nameless as the dust

flaming each sunset and sunrise

 a thousand years more

2. absalom’s wife

perhaps nothing could be said for vanity

and yet

those glistening curls

with the wind brushing his hair black

he hung

 as if trapped

by some other woman

 tangled in her arms

3. abishag the shunammite

his skin bruised as easily as lilies

his breath was stale

death lingered in his lungs

so why do i weep for him—

this warrior with his ten thousands slain

each echoed in a fragile pulse

beneath the shivering flesh

i, too, shivered when they first brought me here

 to blanket his tallow body with my warmth

the king is far away and very old—

 that was common knowledge in my village

 yet here i am

 and so I weep

for legends die

like other men

4. the wife of matthew

soon after the wedding

our lives became a ledger

a daily counting

a mere series of columns and figures

he worked hard

until i wondered how much would be enough

then

everything unraveled

like a thread from my spindle

all because of follow Me

5. woman bent with infirmity

unnamed,

i was less than servant animals

 voiceless in their grazing or being

 led to water

on the fringes

 i carried what they would have me be

 now called daughter of abraham,

at last i am faithful and free