Matriarchs Poem by gershon hepner

Three matriarchs appeared quite sterile,
Sarah and Rebekkah and
young Rachel who, though fair, was feral
when Jacob worked to seek her hand.

Matriarchs as green as beryl
both claimed chastity like nuns,
putting them in dreadful peril,
Sarah twice, Rebekkah once.
(Beryl color of the wheels
and the High Priest’s breastplate stones:
all these women wind like reels
men around their flesh and bones.)

Don’t forget another player
whom her husband caused to suffer,
Rachel’s older sister Leah,
suffering competition rougher
than other wives who are degraded,
receiving conjugally cover
only when her sister traded
her man to be a mandrake lover.
It’s true that she gave birth to men
four times, conceiving Lion Judah,
and Reuben, Simeon, Levi, men
fertile every time he screwed her,
but only these four times did she
lie in his bed, the rest she spent,
once she had spent her chastity,
alone, tumescent in her tent.

Matriarchs lived far too close
to places where the men are sharks
than did the men more grandiose,
who’re known to us as patriarchs,
and only three of them still lie
in their husband’s grave interred,
for Rachel lies where she would die,
in Ramah, where her voice is heard
encouraging all exiles who
from Leah are descended, saying
that they would some day pass by to
return, as they are always praying.

12/4/05