TWO BY TWO

Some days the only thing that makes me feel better about my own plight is to think of others whose plight must be worse. Tacky, I know. But consider Mrs. Noah:

Mrs. Noah

Once the doors were nailed shut
and the rain was pounding the roof
how she must have wept for the children
she watched the water swallow.
How she must have held her own to her breast,
their stink and the animals’ stink
reassuring and warm. How she must
have blamed Noah for her plight,
hating him for believing in a god
that would make her Mother of All
and he their keeper. When the dove
came with its tiny branch how Mrs. Noah
must have ached to snatch it from its mouth,
to take something
for all that had been taken from her.

-Irene Latham