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Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 22.2 (2001) 22-24



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Vashti Records Her Life In Exile

Carol Barrett


What's pleasure's source? Ahasuerus
sought to blot mine out, thinking
I'd go mad without a train of pampering
idiots. He misjudged much,
and left me with my hands,
once tapered, oiled fronds
of leisure, now servants of my soul.
They've sought each startling joy
in desert camp, and still the sky
is new. Fatahmah rides our steed
to Shushan, down the Tigris, once
a moon, loads such as we're allowed
and then some extra slipped her
from the ladies of the court.
They've learned a taste for disobedience.
And I've no guilt in finding
with the wheat a silver urn,
some sesame cakes or pomegranate
wine. They egg each other on,
in veiled tongue report the King's
dismantling. And so we live, [End Page 22]
and build on pride and base
endurance. First shelter took
in rock along the river.
Now we've quarried slate with chisel,
mallet, cool our feet on this sleek floor.
Our hovel suits us, close to bank
and tamarisk, yet hidden
in the cliff. Above, our summer
house of heath and broom and reeds.
The eye of the sun needs no veil
and so each day begins at eventide.
We touch our lips with twigs to keep
the breath from sun's last light,
then spread our figs and olives,
our bread and chickpea paste.
We sweeten palates with bride's fingers,
maiden's cheeks, cleanse tongue
with sprig of cress or mallows.
then soothe the day with tea, dark
leaves swirled and read by oil lamp.
In morning light my Fatahmah tends
the terraced grove of dates
and almond, citron, quince.
I float the kelek, scout for fish
we'll scale with flint and wrap
in olive leaves to bake in terra cotta
along with bread. I boast
of callouses, once tender feet.
They run through rock and rushes,
sorghum, free as wind. [End Page 23]
Our robes are simple, mauve and gray,
arbor colors, girded loose.
My necklace, once carnelian amber,
pearls, now a chain of lentils
my love has strung. No visitor
has dared these grounds. If dancers
preen, they're lazy quail we wait
to hood. Our bodies are our own.
And pleasure's in the hands that make
the things no queen has ever wrought,
save one. And Vashti lives, and will
until the oleander's last pink star
goes out, and pleasure's gone.


 

Carol Barrett holds doctorates in both clinical psychology and creative writing. She works with doctoral students in women's studies, literature, and religious studies through The Union Institute in Cincinnati. Barrett received a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The poems in this issue are from her dissertation, "The Unauthorized Book of Esther: New Poems & Commentary on Revisionist Biblical Literature."

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