The Other Daughter of Laban
He should have been my share
after a childhood sullenly sharing dolls
(they never moved any more for me
than Rachel, didn't feel
my tender touch was different
than her grasping fingers
tugging at their hair) got us nowhere.
When I went to his tent,
I thought I'd finally gotten somewhere
but that lie hung between us like my veil
and he never saw my face
wasn't lovely like hers. Maybe mine wasn't
the dimmed sight behind weak eyes. No;
no different. To him,
I was her and she was me and we,
interchangeable body
doubles, a decoy.
We were used
to that after years of our parents
calling me by her name;
they never noticed an R is not formed
like an L.
I loved them anyway.
I loved him anyway, always
gave him more, hand-wrapped our sons
in swaddling clothes, my consolation.
Head on my breast, he felt
something different in its swell. This once,
he noticed
she and I, we are
not us.
Like me, she is a wife;
I am also a mother.
He should have been my share
after a childhood sullenly sharing dolls
(they never moved any more for me
than Rachel, didn't feel
my tender touch was different
than her grasping fingers
tugging at their hair) got us nowhere.
When I went to his tent,
I thought I'd finally gotten somewhere
but that lie hung between us like my veil
and he never saw my face
wasn't lovely like hers. Maybe mine wasn't
the dimmed sight behind weak eyes. No;
no different. To him,
I was her and she was me and we,
interchangeable body
doubles, a decoy.
We were used
to that after years of our parents
calling me by her name;
they never noticed an R is not formed
like an L.
I loved them anyway.
I loved him anyway, always
gave him more, hand-wrapped our sons
in swaddling clothes, my consolation.
Head on my breast, he felt
something different in its swell. This once,
he noticed
she and I, we are
not us.
Like me, she is a wife;
I am also a mother.