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All my sad nights I lay crying
over my life: I was a girl sold
in marriage to an ugly old man I hated.
How I wanted to kill myself when
your harp music drifted from the palace.
I let the notes flow over my body and
dam my tears. I heard your harp again
as my hands tested the bath water.
I let the notes guide my hands into
making slow waves with the water,
stood up. Your music rose with me.
My back to the window I could have
turned, closed the curtain. Instead
I let the music lift up my arms.
Unhooking my robe I felt the notes
caress my neck, heard your harp stop
for a second when I dropped my robe,
stood naked, sank into the soft water.
Your music spiraled swiftly
down my breasts, then slid softly
over my belly. The notes danced up
my thighs. When I stepped out of the bath
to reach for the towel your music poured
over me in a fountain of joy.
— “Bath-Sheba”
Through the persona of Shulamith, “the singer of all the songs,” these poems treat the condition of Jewish women in the Bible as a prelude to the trials, misfortunes, and victories of their heroic counterparts in the twentieth century.
Julia Stein, a graduate of the University of California at Irvine, is a long-time activist. Her working-class family has lived in Los Angeles for four decades after relocating from Pittsburgh.
She has organized poetry events and directed writing workshops as well as teaching in a number of college and university settings.
In the last twenty years she has published four books of poetry and numerous articles on multicultural and working-class literature in the United States.