Asenath by Geoffrey Reiter

“Pharaoh gave Joseph . . . Asenath daughter of Potiphera [Padipera], priest of On [Iunu], to be his wife.”
—Genesis 41:45

The daughter of the sun and Nile, I live
By waters flowing down to the Great Green
(The salty chaos north), and west I’ve seen
Old papa Atum and the rays he’ll give
Sink deep into the Red Land. So we grieve
The day turn night at sun-set, till the clean
New morn springs east at that brown brink. I’ve been
Down Iunu alleys, where the folk believe
The natron on their bone and flesh will cease
Their skin’s decay. Their guts in limestone jars,
The litanies in tomb-glyphs, and their bas
Aflight. My father, Padipera, priest
Of Re-Atum, the keeper of Maat, wears
A linen robe and mouths the old gods’ laws.

My husband hails from Retjenu, the land
Of brick-walled cities, faithless rivers, foreign
Grain, stiff-necked warriors—yet his warm, bright hand
Upon my hips’ flow feels like Nile; the more in
Down-fluttering love my ib fast falls, the more
I peer far past Re’s rising rays, this vision
Beyond the east becomes my own sight, for
Though my beloved bears the circumcision
Of priestly hierophants like father, he
Looks farther, past the supple, glinting girdle
Of our secure Two Kingdoms, to his three
Ancestors’ Lord. We frolic in the fertile
Black Land. “Forget,” I whisper, “Israel’s sorrow.”
He smiles, “But I’ll remember his tomorrow.”

Geoffrey Reiter is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Literature at Lancaster Bible College and an Associate Editor at the website Christ and Pop Culture. As a scholar of weird fiction, his poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Spectral Realms, Star*Line, Penumbra, ParABnormal, Scifaikuest, and The Mythic Circle.