First Wife
Madwomen, Lilith, breezes in- to the world of flesh, navelless, made of Adam’s lesser dust, she falls into the buzz and hustle realm of animals. Daemoness from the willow tree, queen of night she never dreams that before her, her husband loved a quadruped or, some have said, took to his bed another man. In her original skin,
his wife takes pleasure in a garden lacking only insight. One restless morning wakes, unholy boredom prompting her to ask: Why be a proper housewife?
Never a proper housewife, Lilith lacks not just domestic art, but tact, has to cajole her husband not to force her to her back
but let her straddle him in love like the Greek witches do. Nervous Adam, answers, no, gives Lilith a reason to invent the marital harangue—
to scream out all God’s secret names— and show her scorn for deities and men, declare her faith in skin and hands. She hymns
not Adam but his body, sings her joy in velvet fruit, but not the tree.
What’s left of her first joy except the way she questions all her ex's ways and all his names? Why call them elk or silkworm kangaroo or trout?
Beside the Red Sea, Bruha, Strega, End of all Flesh, she doesn’t wait for answers, finds salvation in resisting angels, loving her daemon lilem, worshiping lascivious hands.
Around her pious men seek heaven; frail men love disgrace. Mad Lilith shows them all their God’s true face.
Notes:
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Leda's Vision
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