The man says, I know girls like you. He says, You’ve named everything Samuel, Solomon. He rattles the bird cage, How many Rebeccas have you made? But each Ezekiel was different. He hits the cage on his way out. How many dogs were Abraham? How many of them answered to the same name? This I can defend: None. The bees were Abrahams. The queen, David. He throws the chair through the window. What do you think now? I’ve killed your Samson. I laugh, No, that was Delilah. He breaks up the house, saying, Fuck your Levi! Fuck your Lazarus!—He breaks the bed with an axe. Nothing will ever rise again. He says, I know girls like you. You think you’re God. You think you can make what you want— Yes, Yes, I laugh triumphant. I know my name. Perhaps I’ll answer if you say it in prayer.
Katherine Lamb is a poet from Texas. She was a Juried Poet for the 2017 Houston Poetry Fest and returned as a Featured Poet in 2018. Her poem, 'A Daughter Goes to Work,' was a finalist for the Nimrod Journal's 2018 Emerging Poets prize. Several of her 'Chorus' poems were published in Tupelo Quarterly's seventeeth issue and chosen by New South Magazine as a finalist for their 2019 prize. One of her 'Parable' poems will appear in The Penn Review's May 2020 issue as a finalist for their 2019 Poetry Prize. Most recently, her manuscript The Chorus is Ready was named a finalist for Texas Review Press's 2019 X.J. Kennedy Prize (it was not published).
Twitter: @KatherineMLamb
Comments