LILITH

By Enid Dame

kicked myself out of paradise left a hole in the morning no note no goobye the man I lived with was patient and hairy he cared for the animals worked late at night planting vegetables under the moon sometimes hed hold me our long hair tangled he kept me from rolling off the planet it was always safe there but safety wasn't enough. I kept nagging pointing out flaws in his logic he carried a god around in his pocket consulted it like a watch or an almanac it always proved I was wrong two against one isn't fair! I cried and stormed out of Eden into history: the Middle Ages were sort of fun they called me a witch

I kept dropping in and out of peoples sexual fantasies now I work in New Jersey take art lessons live with a cabdriver he says, baby what I like about you is your sense of humor sometimes I cry in the bathroom remembering Eden and the man and the god I couldn't live with

LILITH'S NEW CAREER

By Enid Dame

"No other she-demon has ever achieved as fantastic a career as Lilith."

Raphel Patai
THE HEBREW GODDESS

In the last years of the century,
Lilith became Director of Freshman Composition
at an engineering college.
This career advance surprised her.
Her talents didn't fit the job description.
She never dreamed they'd take her.

This story is the same in many cultures:
in Gilgamesh Sumer in Kabbalistic Poland.
The girl always starts out at the bottom
a lowly female demon always on the night shift
always ends up somehow at the top
of something, for an eyeblink
before they find her out.

It was more exciting in the old days
when she got to sleep with God.

Now she learns computer terminology
chooses textbooks hires tutors
makes coffee for the whole department.

Her computer keeps feeding her messages.
An image trembles on the screen then disappears.
Where did it go? Nobody here can tell her.
It's a miracle! The techies treat it casually
as shed once treated Adam
or her own history.

She makes her inner office
into a sort of garden
not unlike the one shed left:
ferns swirl steamily in radiator heat,
primroses change color,
Wandering Jew shoots off toward the ceiling,
Swedish ivy hunkers down among his roots.

She brings in yardsale lamps with maps around their bases.
Lights are soft brown moons here cats eyes stare from wallboard.
Her owls drop feathers on industrial gray carpet.
She could take off her clothes here.
But she never does.

Once she spilled coffee
down computers innards.
It typed a message for her
backward, on the monitor:
MESSIAHS GOTTEN STUCK IN TRAFFIC.
THIS PINHEADS GETTING CROWDED.
THE ANGELS AREN'T DANCING.

Her students
are mostly earnest boys from other countries.
They want to make it in America.
They know computer language.
But private stories scare them.
Especially their own.

They come to office hours
to protest their grades.
She fidgets with her hair
(cut short now, but still red),
tries to seduce them
into writing poetry.

DREAM WEDDING

By Enid Dame

The poets widow
plump blonde middle-aged self-possessed
showed up at your dream wedding,
loaned you her body--a rite you couldn't refuse--
but wouldn't buy you a drink.

You made love in a fade-out.
You didn't want to hurt me.

The dream bar wasn't familiar.
Everyone wore elegant clothes.
You ordered Chardonnay
even though it made you cough.
Your old friend the youngest Beat Poet
was wearing a wooden throat,
a wooden protruding handle.
You asked, How does that feel?
He sighed, I got my life, I still got my life.

When you woke up, you were cold.
You needed a blanket, a throat lozenge.
I curled around you a thick quilt.
All that morning still unmarried we kept falling
in and out of sleep.

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