Lot's Wife

Don’t Look Back. My husband’s words rose out of the fiery darkness like the voice of an angry God. It was night. As the world burned behind us, we walked into the absolute dark of the unknown. I trembled beneath my gossamer dress, my sandaled feet covered in the ashes of my people. The only proof I have of my life are the lines that chart my upturned palms like the branches of a tree; My fate as predictable as a heartbeat. I shed the years sleepily, cast off like unimportant dresses. My whole life I have been trained to be a great artisan of silence, hushed by the commanding voices of men. Father, Husband, do you see me? I am your obedient daughter, your yielding wife. Head bowed, I never question anything, my mouth

closed concealing so many words I have swallowed like glass. All I have left to do now is move forward, blind as God’s will. The men will say that the cinders falling from the smoke-filled sky are the tears of a grieving God. The men will say we were spared because we are innocent, when not even the wrath of God is enough to cleanse our sins. They will tell us to erase our past, to disregard the fallen. But who will speak for them, who will remember? Don’t look Back. His words are obscured in the smoke, their meaning lost to the fire. I am forbidden to look, to see that there is nothing here in this darkness. There is only that which I left behind, somewhere in the remains of a damned city. I can only look back. And so I turn, a pillar of anguish, as the ash from a blackened sky rains down on me like salt.