than when he finished between my thighs. Zipporah
came - the empty bag, a cloth to wrap him in -and took my hand. She carried him. She listened
to words and words before the council.
Lead me home to my husband's house,

the sound of boys playing, afternoons of new light.
I gave her up, who bore the bagged and bloody deed,
who veiled my appetite and lies. She wept
when she covered his face - I won't forget -
and bowed her head to his guards. I remember
she left behind her sash and the gold bangles.
My steady one. I freed her - as if she were mine.

Nancy White has been a fellow at Fine Arts Work Center, in Provincetown. Her first book, Sun, Moon, Salt, won the Washington Prize for Poetry.