In Which God Drops Israel's Womb

Dishevel her hair as she could not dishevel it

Were she in mourning for her jealous husband,

Fill her hands with the grain of remembrance

(Of a body free of bitter pain if she is clean,

Of bitter defilement if she has been sown with taint),

Let the coolness of the written curse (Cheers! Amen!)

Dribble between her lips and settle close to her womb

And chase the child from between her legs, its blood

Intermingled with the fluid of a curse. (And if her husband is wrong

And it is his own seed that he flushes away with jealousy,

His loin may carry its own burden).

This grumbling people

Heavy with the fruit of enslavement,

How can they be borne into the Promised Land

If they carry with them such toxic harvest? They are no better

Than those for whom they leave the borders of their fields

For the poor and wandering people, those ravens amongst men,
And like the raven
They shall not set their limbs on land.