—The Book of Ruth
Back to Moab? Not a chance.
I didn’t marry an outsider for nothing,
didn’t sign on to start again
ten years older, husbandless, childless,
out of my fortune.
Yes, I’d choose her again—shrewd Naomi,
always the brains of the outfit. Who else
ever asked what I wanted? And she knew
a good deal when she saw it.
I never told anyone before, not even God,
but it wasn’t hard to forsake my gods
for hers. To me they were all the same,
men giving orders.
We were in cahoots, two women,
though Naomi dreamed up the plan,
pimped me out to a gentle old man
who called me daughter. That was
risky, but wasn’t it a time to be
bold and wild, with the weather
changing, and the fields
almost bare?
Don’t lie at my feet like a slave,
he said, lifting me in his papery arms.
What did I want? A child.
I love you, he said, but not
like that. I could ruin you.
You won’t, I said.
So we married, in the proper way—
papers signed, property redeemed.
Old as he was, he gave us the child.
Then he died.
That marriage was lucky in two ways.
First, the grandfather of King David
got to be born, and to an alien.
It strengthened the gene pool.
Second, he got to grow up
in a house of women.
