Judy Klass

Lot’s Wife
 
She knew her husband was a righteous man
She knew he meant well when he locked her in
The house, forbidding her to visit friends
And married daughters, grandkids, family
Or walk where, as a child, she played and ran,
For Sodom was a cursed City of Sin;
A person who loves such a place offends
The Lord Our God, and cannot wander free.

Her husband’s uncle’s name was Abraham
And he spent hours bargaining with God
Who waxed wroth, bent on lavishing His wrath
On evil Sodom – killing one and all.
To save the city, Abe’s main stratagem
Was to suggest mass murder was too broad
A blueprint; he asked God to do the math, 
And spare the upright from the overhaul.

“For forty good men there, or thirty-five,
Will you not spare the city? If you find
That there are ten in Sodom who uphold
Your laws, will you not let its towers stand?”
The Lord agreed: those folks could stay alive
If ten good men were found – He’d changed His mind. 
But only one was found. Though Abe cajoled
Him, God would not hold back His mighty hand.

Coincidentally, that one good man
Was Lot – Abraham’s nephew – so, God sent
Two shining, handsome angels to his home
To talk with Lot of things that must be done.
Lot’s neighbors – godless, cosmopolitan
And vicious – swarmed the house; they were hellbent
On rapine, and their threats were worrisome;
Lot, being righteous, made a calculation.

Good etiquette dictates a host must shield
His guests from harm, no matter what the cost.
And so, Lot told the crowd they could gang-rape
His two virginal daughters – but his wife
Was horrified to hear that he would yield
The girls up! She screamed loudly, so he tossed
Her in a back room – let her pound and scrape
The door she tried to open for dear life.

The door was thick, she screamed, she heard the screams
Of her young daughters, she heard shouts and jeers
And chaos outside. Hours seemed to crawl.
The door unlocked, and opened. She came out,
Sleepwalking, moving through her darkest dreams.
No one confirmed or allayed her worst fears.
Her daughters huddled, crying. And the brawl
Was over. Lot would only talk about

The need to pack up everything at once
And flee the city! He put her to work
And, with donkeys and bundles, they set forth.
They did make several stops along the way
Outside their married daughters’ houses, since
Lot’s wife pled for them. But Lot was a jerk
To both his sons-in-law; it wasn’t worth
It to them to heed warnings, and obey.

Out on the road, beyond the city’s walls,
Lot’s wife heard the explosions and the cries.
The sky was thick with smoke, and bright with fire
The sickening smell of sulfur filled the air
(The stench of horror, as a city falls!
The shrieks of terror, as a people dies!)
The crash of buildings on the funeral pyre
Of her world filled the woman with despair.

Amidst the nightmare sights, and sounds, and scents
Lot’s wife thought she could hear a sudden cry
Come from her eldest daughter! She turned ‘round,
Defying what her husband had decreed,
Saw fire and brimstone! For her arrogance – 
Daring to care, wanting to say goodbye – 
She was transformed, and rooted to the ground,
Abandoned by those she’d accompanied.

And still she stands there, to this very day:
Immobile and misshapen and accursed.
Nearby, the tourists flock to the Dead Sea
They bathe, and wince, as salt makes their cuts hurt
And salt is what she knows, far more than they:
A bitter taste, an unquenchable thirst...
Encrusting her, and every memory
Preserved. (Not like ours, which end up in dirt.)

Some of the pilgrims to her spot are liable
To take her picture, offer prayers and songs
To God, in all of His gracious ubiquity
And sometimes she has heard these people read
From a worn Torah or a Good News Bible
Of how she’s justly punished for her wrongs
This heretic, in all of her iniquity!
The next part does not make her cry, or bleed – 

As she is now – but it fills her with pain
To hear Lot and his daughters traveled on
To Zoar, and then to a mountain cave.
The girls may not have been right in the head
At that point – otherwise, would they have lain
With Lot, their father, like the world was gone?
Like he was the last man – the race to save?
They drank wine, and he took each one to bed...

Lot’s wife has not discussed with theologians
What classifies a man as sanctified,
Or how her husband lived life without fault,
Or God’s great plan, or other arcane things.
That righteous Lot, who sired his own grandsons,
Is not someone she’d want there at her side
As years go by. All that she knows is salt.
Her universe is salt now. And it stings.

Judy Klass has had three books of poems published – by Linear Arts Books and by Singular Speech Press.  Her work has also appeared in The Brooklyn Review, The Brownstone Review, Slant, Pivot, Faultline, The Long Island Quarterly, Piedmont Literary Review, Ship of Fools, iota, Shenandoah, Möbius, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Masque & Spectacle, and other publications.