The Adulteress
by Dawn Pisturino
“It is the law,” Old Moses cried
A-top the mountain called Sinai;
“And everyone who broke it, died,”
The people in the valley sighed.
“And what of me?” the young girl said,
Shaking her black and tousled head.
“I will not send him from my bed,
Not if the sun becomes blood red!”
She spread her arms as if to fly:
“Not if the moon should leave the sky!
I love him! Strong, yet very shy —
The man whose side I must be by!”
Her husband prayed the whole night through.
“What have I done? What must I do?”
He muttered as the sky turned blue.
The laws were made; they must hold true.
The people gathered with their stones
And broke the young wife’s slender bones.
And when she died with cries and groans,
They turned and heard her husband’s moans.
“The price is paid,” they cried as one.
“The sinful tie has been undone.”
The young man turned, as if to shun,
The righteous crowd whose law had won.
~
September 18, 1986; August 3, 2022
Copyright 1986-2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.
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