The Woman Who Was Water
- The Woman Who Was Water
The Woman Who Was Water
The woman who was waterlived on the edges of rooms,knew when to withdraw.
The woman who was watercame to Brooklyn,and filled every basement.
The woman who was waterleft all of her loversclean.
The woman who was waterinsisted no one understood her,saw herself gentle as mist,
a rain-pearly morning, a sweet lilac fog.So, when she battered at shingles,gnawed through foundations,
burst out of pipes,she knew she was offering love.Why didn't people want it?
The woman who was waterwas not analytical.She knew three things:
They couldn't pass laws against her.They couldn't declare her harmless.They couldn't exist without her.
The woman who was watercould power a city,or drown it. [End Page 227]
Enid Dame (1943–2003) was a poet, teacher and editor whose work often focused on women's, particularly Jewish women's, creativity. "Miriam's Seders," from Stone Shekhina (Three Mile Harbor, 2002), her last book published during her lifetime, was included in Best Jewish Writing 2003 (Jossey-Bass). With Henny Wenkart and Lilly Rivlin, she co-edited the anthology Which Lilith? Feminist Writers Re-Create the World's First Woman (Jason Aronson, 1998); and she was also a co-editor of Bridges, the Jewish feminist magazine, and of Home Planet News, the literary review she and her husband, Donald Lev, founded in 1979.
