"Lot's Daughters, Rising" by Patricia Brody

Lot’s Daughters, Rising
Lo the smoke of the country rose as the smoke of a furnace

Firstborn girl: Father saw nothing as I came — & left.
The bedclothes reeked of sour wine
Old man’ s breath.

Under ash foul furnace scream / bone / spiral / home
This never clears

that he could get it, do this — a miracle, small death.
Younger sister: Who says he did?

Suspended disbelief suspended greed
/seed
/need —

And Mother, salt that was . .
Melts. Tears run down the pocked, riven face
to feed her angels, (angels before birth).

Mother on her pillar, if she could speak,
could move that tongue.
What sound would mother make .

From the dank cave, we crawled out
to suck in breath, knowing what we’d seen was true.
The sky scarred with smoke turning blue.

patricia Brody

Patricia Brody received an MSW from Columbia University and a Masters in English Literature from City College of New York. She has two poetry collections, American Desire and Dangerous to Know. She has appeared in Barrow Street, Western Humanities Review, Paris Review, and online on Poetry Daily, Istanbul Review, and BigCityLit.co. She is especially proud of her poems that appeared in Psychoanalytic Perspectives, International Journal of Feminist Politics, and in the anthology Chance of a Ghost. Brody works as a family and couples therapist in New York City and teaches SEEKING YOUR VOICE: a Poetry Workshop,  at the Barnard College Center for Research on Women. 

Headshot: Patricia Brody

Photo Credit: Staff