Lot's Daughters

Lot took his two remaining daughters and fled the city.

            Those three got out okay,
but when the girls caught their breath they thought
            Lot was the last man on earth,
Sodom was all they knew and that place was ashes
            and who would they marry
and how could they have - that ancient obsession - sons?

So they got Lot drunk and laid with him.

What could have put that in their minds?

Do you suppose it was the angels? Those same angels
            Lot sheltered from neighbors
banging on his door grunting after strangers? Lot offered
            his daughters to the mob instead
and only the powers of heaven kept them from being
            strewn like tattered meat
on the family threshold, their shrieks dying.

No, probably not the angels. Maybe like their mother
            the girls looked back
and thought hey losing our virginity to someone we know
            can't be so bad and anyway
our little trick on Dad is nothing compared to what he invited
            those others to do to us.
So taking turns like orderly children one after the other
            they got sons off their father.

That's the last we hear of the daughters but, oh yes,
many generations down it turned out good for the Jews.

Ruth D. Handel
Scarsdale, NY

© 2003 Women in Judaism Inc.
www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/	this page last updated on: 5/23/03