Infinity

She drags
herself out
from within

quick shallow
breaths
and stands

tilts her head opens
her mouth hears the earth
an echoing tomb

and how does she know
what a tomb is

this woman without
a beginning who looked
at the first husband
himself a speck in god’s eye
with a curse in her own—
longing
for a mother instead?

Forget about Eve. Forget
about her compliant fruitfulness!
I want to know
what a woman without
a mother without
a daughter is—

I know who she is—
audacity, agony, grief
tenacious enough—
or fool enough—
to keep walking;

I want to know what she is
this woman a thread
plucked cut severed
from the fabric of heaven

to stand here
alone

I did not say—
on her own

I said—
alone.

what is a woman without
a mother without
a daughter—

are we to remain in exile of ourselves?
Forget about Eve.

I want to talk
about Lilith

the first bud
on the first branch of the first tree—
a bent thing,
weeping.

was she scared,
when she left it to wither
once she stepped into the unfathomable
ocean to see
what she could make of the world?

Faith Cotter is originally from Pittsburgh, PA but now travels the world as a U.S. Foreign Service spouse. She is the recipient of a 2010 Society of Professional Journalists National Mark of Excellence Award, among other regional and local awards for journalism. Her poems have appeared in the Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Time and Singing magazine, ZO Magazine, and the Madwomen in the Attic’s Voices from the Attic anthology. She has an MA in Professional Writing from Chatham University, and has lived in London, DC, and now Amman, Jordan.

Image: Mbrickn, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons