job’s wife

yes, i loved my husband

i bore him twenty children

i just thought it was too much

seeing him there like dust

his sickness, the loss, the loss



his friends also told me

that i was too harsh then,

when i stamped down my word,

but they were just his friends,

not his wife who heard the sobs



and i lost too, you know

i was not simply scrubbing

washing away tears with lye

it was my flesh out there

in the festive yard that died



his friends had time for talk

while i had to tend to him

scrub the awful blight from him

tell him if it gets worse

then leaving is the best way



i feel falsely rendered

and have wondered since why he

el, the god, did not mention

my delicate function

along with the great sea beast



i am not merely talk

harsh talk at a dying man

i always loved my husband

had my flesh on the line

but it was unbearable



i would have done the same

as my words commanded him

if my number had been drawn

by those gangsters up there

to be rolled, a helpless die



no, i stayed in the house

while the men chatted out there

about justice and the rest

i had to bury ten

silent after my four words



this also was not told

but utz was wickedly hot

and part of el’s playful scourge

brought sand into our wells

i walked legion heavy steps



my husband did say once

without you i would be naught

as he drank water in drought

sweat pouring down his limbs

this also is not mentioned



it is never mentioned

that here after seven days

the men are talking, talking

while the women are tending

behind the doors of god’s trial