Ruth \’rüth\(n.)
BY AVIA TADMOR
Finalist for the 2019 Gregory Djanikian Scholars Program
Meaning friendship. Meaning flight
of rare birds. Meaning a woman
who doesn’t belong here. Meaning I wanted
to know, when Naomi, meaning my mother
and friend said, go to the threshing floor.
When he sleeps, uncover a place at his feet
and lay there, make yourself known
meaning, attempt at seduction
what else do you have, did she mean
to define or defend me?
Ruth Remembers Imagining the Field Before Leaving Moab
BY AVIA TADMOR
Finalist for the 2019 Gregory Djanikian Scholars Program
after Traci Brimhall
I listened. I listened and hated
the thought of the women who left before me,
their dark bodies advancing through you
like shadows, their voices
thin summer rain. All I’d known was my body
had always wanted another
but I dreamed of them lain alone in the clearing
belonging to no one. I dreamed of them closing
their eyes, of how they’d stir strange heat on the ground
not to remember the place they’d come from
as much as to write new desire
in dirt. I wanted to know what they named the season
for being nameless. I imagined their soles growing thick
until splitting open, green insects
laying amethyst eggs in the sores. I imagined not knowing
what winged thing breeds in the flesh
or how by the end of the season, something turns
into sawfly or moth. It was spring and I washed alone.
Watched cane toads at night eat their own
so by summer I’d wake up forgetting
the songs of the tribe, the stakes
that hold up the temple. I wanted to be free
of the seasons, of living thankful, a freedom
even from God. I want to trust the old world
will reassemble without me. To trust myself to return
as I’d come here: unbridled and still good.
