And Her Name Meant Everything from Judgment and Strife to Vindication

“The sons of Jacob came upon [the men they had] slain and plundered the city because [those men] had defiled their sister.”

—Genesis 34:27

Yes, I know reason, know rationalize, can
adage how hurt people hurt people and cite
the ancient laws of a woman’s fault 
for her own poor fortune, trace their echoes 
back through my wife to her mama’s 
mama in Kentucky, tucking a twenty 
in her grandbaby’s bra, just in case, 
warning her away from the woods
with the double-edged words, Now, don’t you go 
and get yourself raped. And still, Dinah, 

I understand your brothers’ fury, their willingness 
to strike down a whole damn town 
if it would make you feel even a little 
bit better. When I think of you, silenced, 
freighted with your complicated name, 
your savage fate; when I think of 
her, the woman I love, of all the women 
wounded simply because a man could
not stop himself, of all the women 
shamed for the actions of others,
my stomach furnaces a brimstone 
and fire I wish hot enough to rain 
through time and raze all that damage 
with a lick of blue-backed flame.

I tell myself, I do, if she’s found 
a way to forgiveness I should too. 

But the so many days I kiss salt 
from her eyes. The startle if I take her too swiftly
in my arms. And a pack of coyotes 
quickens my veins, keens its need 
to hunt anyone who hurt her, even 
the dead, and leave nothing
but twists of hair, bits of bone. 

For those I love, my love comes
with this catch. My most devouring fury, 
though, is for me. For no matter 
how I protect every day forward, the past
in immutable, indefensible. Which makes 
such anger just sorrow with armor on.