The Wife to Potiphar

Regret his imprisonment? Yes! I wanted him dead.
But a month or two of Egyptian penal correction
Should serve the purpose. No, I don't miss him, not now.
That's my point, we never—he balked, he wouldn't.
Oh, I liked him at first. Handsome, with such eyes . . . [Sighs]

And, like most members of his race, intelligent.
Although, naive. A certain roughness, a crude strength.
Is one way to put it. But a year or so in Egypt
Pumices most of our immigrants to a higher finish.
Hints from myself served as a last, elegant chamois.
   [Chuckles]
Couldn't he gauge the effect of those bows, that proffered
   arm?
Oh, never doubt he enjoyed our chats. A member of the male
Species dancing attendance on me: I wasn't used
To that. From my husband least of all. A woman in the Nile
Valley? She's a despot's bitch, on whom he sires his whelps.
Potiphar got five—not that he thanked me for a single one.
Children, you see, redress the constraints we labor under.
To lift my spirits, friends always apply the same poultice:
"Your son will have the prerogatives you were denied."
Fine. But who ever mistakes the tinny tone of an alibi?
They want to stanch the whining and defuse their own
   guilt. [Yawns]
So tiresome, curled up in your bedding like a ripe melon.
Gazing at the frieze opposite, in the vain hope mere
Figments will draw you into their blue and green legend.