Another flood poem. Wet springs do this to us.

ANOTHER WOMAN WITH NO NAME

By Timothy Pettet

(after viewing “Noah’s Ark, A Narrative,” a painting by Jane Booth)

“...the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; 

so they took them wives of all whom they chose.” 

                                                                        Genesis 6

A friend of mine tells me 

she is responsible for floods 

the way butterflies are responsible 

for hurricanes and tornadoes. Depressed, 

she sits in her backyard on the stern bench 

of her husband’s aluminum canoe, paddles 

and bailing bucket handy. Enraged 

by bombs along the Euphrates, she calms 

by strapping gas cans into bins 

on board their pontoon. Her smile,

on the rare morning after an orgasm, fades, 

when she hears news of a tsunami. 

A reincarnated concubine of Noah, she recalls 

stories about the dust that covered the land of Nod 

when daughters were born to men and then

the lust that caused the deluge. She remembers 

Noah at night, watching the storm from the deck 

of his ark, sword of the cherubim lighting up 

the bent tops of trees in the distant garden, 

rain trailing from the dark clouds of heaven. 

She knows she didn’t survive. Only 

the nameless wives of Noah were allowed 

onto the ark. She says, another flood 

and we are all sunken treasure.