Читать книгу Vexed - Elizabeth Poreba - Страница 11

Abraham and Sarah Get the Unlikely News

Her husband sits in the center of the painting,

lifting a languid finger toward her.

She leans out of the house

as if to restrain herself from escape.

That’s a gnarled hand, clutching the doorframe.

It’s the moment after her laugh.

After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?

God chooses to ask Abraham about this:

Why did she laugh?

but she’s the one to answer:

I laughed not.

To which the creator of the universe responds with a careless

Nay but thou didst laugh

or Yes you did. You laughed.

depending on the translation.

But no matter; she lies and it doesn’t make a difference because then

the men rose up from thence.

It was time to wrangle over Sodom and Gomorrah

and the issue of Lot’s wife.