Guilt and Knitting

Lilith, you and I

     have met before at this crossing.

I envied the way you strode, musky,

     wearing purple silks

your red hair like flames

     licking the delicious night

circling so much closer to the moon than I.

 

You’ve seen me before,

     invited me to moon dances,

to shout poetry to the stars

     But I have too often shrunk and shuffled

and turned to Eve on my right

     gone back to our talks of guilt and knitting,

while you laughed back at those

     who make rules about apples and edens.

Your voice loud, fragrant reaches me in

     dream and I am calling to you:

teach me how to talk back.  

 

Published in Which Lilith, edited by Enid Dame, Lily Rivlin and Henny Wenkart, Jason Aronson Inc, 1998