Potiphar’s Wife

My father said that women of the Book
were whores and mothers, all.
It does appear the captain's wife,
Without a name to even dress her pall,
moved about her husband's house
like Lust had human life
and face, and settled on Joseph.
Potiphar, captain of the pharaoh's guard,
was would-be cuckold to the slave.
But Joseph's faith was held in high regard
by one above both captain and pharaoh,
and so, the wife, unmotivated wraith,
without persona or image
moved on into obscurity
with neither hatred nor pity.
The feminine so feared, perhaps,
it could be neither titled nor made flesh.

I see her in the distance, like
a person viewed using the wrong
end of a telescope.
A rich red veil covering her mouth,
with body slender as the hope
left locked inside Pandora’s box.
A speechless Phaedra of the dunes.

Thousands of years later
in leafy Essex, witch country,
other women would be stripped
of names to dress their palls.
A factor in the lives of men
they’d move through History’s great halls
like mice across a palace rug.
Potiphar’s wives had many names
called by their fathers and husbands,
but all were cast as leering shames
to fuel the necessary flames.