The Poetry of Karla Huston | ||
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SPIRITUAL WARFARE | ||
I'm always thinking about Lot's wife,
wonder what her neighbors thought when she packed her tunics and cooking pots and left town without so much as a fare thee well. Dave, the guy I work with says, "It's because she was a sinful woman in a sinful town. You know where the word sodomy comes from." I tell him, "Sodomy's been made legal in Texas. I read it in the paper yesterday." Dave has been known to get down on his knees and pray before a computer, but it never seems to work because it's always messed up. "You see, Dave, if she'd had a name, maybe someone could have called to her, maybe she might not have turned back." I'm obsessed with this, it's true, but I can't get the no-name-pillar-of-salt thing out of my head, and this woman who probably left with wash on the line and goat stew simmering on the fire. And then there are those two daughters who later lay with their father, there being no other men worth their salt in that mountain town where they ended up. "Good thing she wasn't around to see that kind of sodomy," I say. "Women need guidance. Remember Eve?" I tell him, "Let's agree to disagree on this." He glares at me; his face turns red; pimples stand out like, like angry mountains, I think. "Besides, Dave, Lot lingered--he lingered, and God took mercy on him. I want mercy for her. And a name, Dave, a name, for God's sake. Please call her something besides 'Lot's wife'." Dave takes my hand, says, "Kneel with me and let's pray for you, my disagreeable friend, and for all those sick people in Texas." Meanwhile, the computer flashes: this program has performed an illegal operation. "How about Loretta?" I ask, thinking of my best friend from high school. I shuck off his hand and add, "It's a good name, and Mary's been used." |
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Previously published in RATTLE and the chapbook: Virgins on the Rocks, Parallel Press, 2004.
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