— The Woman Who Would Not Disappear

A seal.
A cord.
A staff.
Three ordinary things
held in a widow’s lap,
waiting for the hour
of their speaking.

*

Judah went down
from his brothers.
Er died.
Onan refused her a future,
and died.

“Wait in your father’s house
until Shelah grows.”

Shelah grew.
No one came.

*

A promise left empty
is a cup set on the table
and never filled.

Tamar waited
until waiting itself
became a kind of vanishing.

*

So she changed her garments,
veiled her face,
sat by the road to Timnah.

Judah passed
and did not know her.

Some veils hide.
Some veils reveal
the one who refused to see.

*

“She is with child.
Bring her out and burn her.”

How quickly the hand
lights the fire
for a sin it carries in its own sleeve.

*

Then the message:
“Recognize these.
Whose seal,
whose cord,
whose staff?”

The mirror turned.
Judah saw his own face.

“She is more righteous than I.”

*

The heart is a house
with many locked rooms.
Repentance is the key
that turns
only from the inside.

*

At the birth,
a small hand reached out.
The midwife tied a scarlet thread.
The hand withdrew,
and Perez broke through first.

Breach.
Breaking through.

*

I have stood, over the years,
where Judah stood,
quick to judge
what I would not name in myself.

Lord, give me eyes
for the overlooked,
for the widow on the roadside
of my life.

*

The Beloved writes the promise
through the margins,
in a scarlet thread
on a wrist
almost forgotten.

Tamar would not disappear.
Through a broken door
the truth walked in.