When Abraham came to Egypt fleeing famine, he pretended his extraordinarily beautiful wife Sarah was his sister, for fear men would kill him to possess her. The Pharaoh took Sarah into his house after giving her “brother” many rich gifts, but later expelled them both after a series of divine plagues alerted him to their deception.

Did Sarah salivate
Smelling the banquet
Prepared for her by a king?

Did she feel her limbs melt
In his fragrant bath
On his silken couch
At the touch of his uncalloused hand?

What did she think
Watching him sleep
Before the plagues came
Before he cast her out, crying “begone”?

I wonder.

And in all their long years
Did they speak of it, ever?
They’d done what had to be done

Now we pray to their memories
Our father and mother
With lives strange and ancient
And yet just like ours
A tangle of beauty and mess