Some women resist ruin for three thousand years.
The wrecking ball smashes the front closet and hall
but they just keep humming and dusting the knick-knacks.
Lot’s wife disobeyed, turned and looked back at what was
forbidden, now she’s afraid to risk any tears,
four could dissolve a salt pillar.
I watched a woman sell everything for one gleaming pearl.
When the man in the death-hat drove up to her door
she refused his offer of thirty more years.
In my dreams I keep looking for windows and light.
Yesterday I read about Barbara locked in a tower,
she traded her life for the light from three windows.
Pascal whistled and set the dice on the table,
he kept his theory of probability deep in his pockets.
Let’s bet, he said, as if I had nothing to lose.
After the truck broke down in Montana, I left
my soul in a ditch by the side of the road. Years later
I opened a wound, the soul slipped back in.