Twelve Pieces of a Concubine

Judges 19–20

We reassembled heras the pieces came in the mail—a bluish fist in a small box,a long leg delivered like a bouquet.We thought, Why not just send a letter?

While the men slept, we sewed her back together,brushed the bruises awayuntil her blood ran red again.We grumbled, “Another call to war.”

The head arrived last, of course,and before we finished stitching,the once dusky lips had formed her name.We washed the mud and gore from her hairas she told us about her death in Gibeah.

She said, “Concubine is a poor translation.”We said, “So is everything else.”Before the men marched, we let her go,newly re-alive, to haunttheir shattered sleep.

Now we see her in our husbands’ cold sweat,and in the morning we repeat her storywhile our daughters practice on the looms.In their telling of the legend, they will sayshe sprouted black, furious wingsand that she may never die.