Dinah
She hung around Village coffee houses
with painters and sculptors, who were always high
on color, form, and space.
Of course it happened,
trouble.
She slept with a sculptor and brought dishonor
to Jacob and her family.
But there would be no swordpoint wedding!
The sculptor knew a good Israelite woman
when he had one; he asked Jacob for her hand.
Jacob consented on condition
that the males of the Village be circumcised.
It was done; however,
on the third night following the cutting,
when the pain was the greatest,
and the men at their weakest,
Simeon and Levi, behind Jacob’s back,
slaughtered all the males and plundered the Village.
She went to Egypt with her brothers,
gave birth to a daughter, and disappeared
from Jewish history.
(Centuries later, she was resurrected
by Eddie Cantor, a Jewish star of the Broadway stage,
who found her in the State of Carolina,
where there was no one finer
than Dinah
Lee.)
