Delilah's Testament

Samson told her: If my head were shaved, then my power would turn aside from me, and I would be weak, I would be as any of the human race -- Judges 16:18

I first heard his name when the fields burned –
the beaters falling back with faces blistered,
their wet sacks scorched and useless – Samson, Samson
they cried. For who else could have
summoned foxes: fifty foxes, crazy, scrambling,
wailing like babies, each dragging a torch.
Like comets they burned across Philista. My country
smoldered. Samson, Samson. I first saw him
tearing open Hebron’s gates – the men
waiting to kill him scattering. He wore
a lion’s skin, and I saw him, then, as lion:
fangs marking his forehead, his black mane
tangled with the tawny, his eyes
that innocent. But as he ripped the gate posts up,
his shoulder slipped bare, and I saw him
human. Samson, Samson. His Lord
loved him, sent him water from the rocks,
sent him foxes. And I? I liked that shift,
to see him changed and mortal. And so
I moved, I murmured, I tried to take
his power. He told me three lies,
and each time I betrayed him – bound him in his sleep
and called my brothers. Samson, Samson,
the Philistines are upon you. Each time he woke
and snapped his bonds like flax in fire. Each time
he slaughtered. And yet, he stayed.
And yet, I held him, with brothers dead,
my walls spattered. In the end – Samson, Samson,
let me make you human -- he surrendered.
When I sat with his head in my lap,
and with my fingers around the razor --
when his cut hair curled between my legs
I knew at last the source of power. To be human
is surrender. I called my brothers.

___________

I still can't get this darn thing right. Snarl.