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Callaloo 25.2 (2002) 357


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The Wife of Lot Witnesses Her Husband Offering
Their Two Daughters to Sodom's Crowd

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

There came two angels to Sodom at even: and Lot sat at the gate of Sodom. . . and he said Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house . . . But before they lay down, the men of the city, compassed the house round. . .

Gen. 19:1-5

quick shut the door shut the door shut the door
i want my two girls back wash it out quick
shut the door my nipples aching from grief
blood covers blood covers heat covers funk
covers semen on roses perfume skin
bone cracks lot's lies blind eyes teeth reaching
so many men so many reaching my
babies my lot's smile please i have here two
girls who have not known men reaching for my
babies will come from this i know i know
blood covers blood covers heat covers funk
do not wicked unto these men why ask
god's forgiveness threw my girls in the fire


 

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is author of The Gospel of Barbecue, which Lucille Clifton selected for the 1999 Stan and Tom Wick Prize for Poetry. Her second book of poems, Outlandish Blues, is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in 2003. She has won awards from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Barbara Deming Memorial.

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