Congratulations to RCAH alum, Leila Chatti, on the publication of her debut collection, Deluge! For ordering details click here.
Exegesis
I bled. God didn’t
want to hear about it. He said unclean
and so it was. He said it is
harm, and so it was.
Want to hear about it? He said unclean.
Once a woman wanted, so he did
her harm. And so it was
first conceived: a woman suffering
because a woman wanted. So he said
cursed. And then he said blessed—
the woman chose to suffer, conceived
a god, though she never knew a man.
And God knows best. If He calls a curse a blessing
then so it is. And he said she was
clean—she never knew a man. I’ve known men but never a god
that bled and lived. But I did.
Copyright © 2020 Leila Chatti. From Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) by Leila Chatti.
The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU 