Noah's Wife

We hadn't touched in years. All he did was tinker
in the shed, mutter to himself.

I'll admit when the first rain hit I ran
onto the boat with the ram and the goat,
feared the vixen's teeth, the antlers of the moose.

Noah was glued to the wheel so I set a truce:
I wouldn't salt the flank of a cow
or rip the leg off a goose

if the buffalo kept its horns to itself
and the snake flattened to a belt.

I slept with my head on the stomach of an ox.
We shared dried apricots and fermented malt.

When our ship pulled in an olive dropped
from the dove's lips, deer flinched,
the ape turned away. They ran, crawled, sniffed

and leapt into the sea. As it they knew our pact
wouldn't last, like the rainbow in the sky,
my husband's hand hovering over mine.