The Husband Asks Her
- The Husband Asks Her
Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?
(1 Samuel 1:8)
And this question makes sense to him, because he sees them still as teenagers, making out in a tent, hiding from summer storms
and she sees herself as a would-be grandmother, facing the endless sand alone, envying the fruit of other wombs.
He knows he will love her forever, past graying teeth and decaying gums, past lies and promises kept or broken.
She believes her sway over him is waning. She knows a woman with no child is out of place, pitied. She turns to him, unable
to say these things. He pats her hand, smiles. As years pass, it seems to her the rain keeps its secrets. Her lips move silently,
although she believes no one listens. She cries without tears. The arm of the Lord is mighty, and strikes without warning.
Jeannine Hall Gailey's first book of poetry, Becoming the Villainess, was published by Steel Toe Books. Her poems have appeared on Verse Daily (http://www.versedaily.com/) and in journals such as the Iowa Review, Columbia Poetry Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal. Her chapbook, "Female Comic Book Superheroes," is available from Pudding House Press and her Web site, www.webbish6.com.
