Jezebel, the Woman I Admire

Born a Phoenician princess, when you died at spiteful hands, the garments
of royalty, in which you had dressed yourself, were stained with blood
that street dogs lapped after they tore your flesh and so fulfilled Elijah’s prophesy.

The street in my neighborhood, which teams with zealots,
is named “Jezebel.” Little would they know that I smile without malice
when I pass the road sign each morning. “Jezebel.”
How you have suffered, despised and maligned by chauvinists.
Elijah; in your hatred for this woman and all of her gender,
you caused the slaughter of Baal’s prophets and deserved Jezebel’s
wrath for infringing on her own right to religious freedom.

Little did the populace gain from you, the princess of foreign birth
and adverse religion; Jehu achieved the coup with the support
of bloodthirsty Jewish prophets, who then preserved your vilified
image through the ages. But to me, you were and still are
a strong woman, even though to others you remain the harlot.

After you served as greedy Ahab’s tool, you liberated yourself
from male control and placed yourself as a head of Israel,
with Ahab being your unimportant second in command until
the wild dogs devoured him. But you, Jezebel, showed true class
right till your last moment and indicated your royal status
and dignity by leaving your life dressed in the finery of a queen,
not in the drags of the promiscuous harlot who, allegedly,
seduced prophets and saints and collected their souls as though
they were butterflies. Again, this morning, as I passed the street named
after you—I smiled without malice.