IV—The Book of Ruth.
1. Rambunctious emotions roiled
Boss’s blood.
As if sanctimonious, he’d consult elders.
2. He cat-whistled compiled the Kaffeeklatsch
of 10 oligarchs,
spat, “Sit yo brown duffs down!”
3. Boss brought up Naomi’s current tender
of nice parcels of arable property,
the profit intended to be her pension
and her daughter-in-law’s support.
4. Boss argued that to buy from Naomi,
one must also buy from Ruth.
5. “Y’all gotta make the grand purchase,
for Ruth, outta Mob, is wifed to our dead kin,
and his inheritance will be void, otherwise.
How else to resuscitate his name?”
6. But Boss’s kinsmen—
this petty bourgeoisie—
were let-downs:
“No can do.”
“Ain’t got the cash-on-hand!”
“We’re NSF. Thou art S.O.L.”
“You’re solo, Padrino.”
7. (In these ancient times in Israel,
to affirm a pledge re: money matters,
a man had to pluck off his shoe
and hand it to a neighbour.)
8. Now the kinsmen—not cash-rich enough
to do the doubled-up, real-estate deal,
each plucked off one shoe—
(a motley mismatch of lefts, rights,
sandals, brogues, sneakers, flip-flops,
in leather or canvas)—
and planted it in a general pile,
all to affirm their collective view
that Boss should outlay the cash
to the two widows,
to grow his plantation exponentially.
9. They recognized that Boss’ chess pieces,
so to speak,
were bulls—
not mere horses, mere pawns.
10. Boss assented:
“Y’all now witness that I’ll buy up
Naomi’s lands.”
11. And he added (so slick):
“But not only am I collecting Ruth’s share,
I’m annexing her—
Mileage’s widow—
to wife me and so preserve
her dead husband’s legacy.”
12. The kinsmen shouted, “Hurrah!
(The roar sounded like buzzing—
all those huzzas.)
13. “We’re witnesses to this agreement.
May Ruth be wholly beneficial for Israel
and become famous in Bethlehem.
14. “And let thy household multiply
like the household of Parvez
(whom Tamar bore for Judah),
once you breed Ruth,
for she be a basket of seeds:
To be pampered.”
15. (Here be the intersection of sex
and property interests.)
16. So Boss took Ruth as his—
his sweet, comely, syrupy cuntella.
To drape her snowy bust
with gold necklaces.
17. Their lovin occurred amid
an inferno of green—
a volcanic eruption
of green-sheathed ears of gold corn.
18. (After the green bed of the fields,
there were black fragrances of rum
and chocolate.)
19. Each kiss was a guzzle—
a festive gulp—of tongue.
Their kisses were a happy guttling,
seemingly, of flesh.
20. Ruth’s knees stirrup’d her hubby’s thighs.
As her belle-chose scaled up his beam,
then plunged down,
repetitively,
Boss feared his brain was truncated:
He was so delirious due to that joint crotch
where Carnality fluxed, pulsed, throbbed.
21. (Padrone’s “stable” saw less [rough] usage:
Ruth was pleased to feel her new hubby’s snipe,
wiping, swabbing, to and fro in her honey.)
22. And thus was Ruth’s hungered cunny
nightly plungered and watered and refreshed,
so that soon flooded forth Boss’s son.
23. And all the women praised Naomi,
declaring, “The Lord hath blessed thee,
and now thou shalt have descendants.
24. “And Ruth’s son will be as good to you
in sickness and in old age—
as if you’d borne the boy thyself.”
25. Her childless want now terminated,
Naomi saw her breasts suddenly enhanced,
miraculously recharged, refloated,
bloated beautifully with milk,
and she suckled the newborn infant
so much she felt again like fucking
all the time, incessantly.
26. Widowed kinsmen began to pay
Naomi visits, ringing her bell and bringing gold
or myrrh or pearls or handsome cuts of lamb.
Nice was it to curl up with one of the fellas,
now and then, with the lights out,
and Privacy and Discretion assured.
27. As for the boy babe,
Naomi loved even his smelly blushing
when he made caca.
28. And the neighbor women named the child,
“Obadiah Loving,”
and they considered him Naomi’s son,
who’d later father Jesse,
who, in turn,
begat David.
[Halifax (Nova Scotia) 28-29 abril / Nisan mmxviii]
