print previewback ROSALIE MOFFETT
Rosalie Ruth Moffett
Sometimes a twin absorbs her sibling
in the womb. My mother bled a little,
so maybe I did this. I knew
even then what sympathy was: another
discomfort. Nonetheless, they named me Ruth
which is a kind of compassion
nobody wants anymore—the surviving half
of the pair of words is ruthless.
My ecoterrorism handbook says
some plants come back forever,
through anything. I’ve planted a few stands
of bamboo where they’ll grow
through the floor of the new strip mall.
Like Ruth, the Moabite, I desire
to be something that can't be
gotten rid of easily. Loyal, she gleaned
in the grain, and maybe something went on
with Boaz on the threshing floor in the dark
one morning. All this I read in the Bible
which is a kind of handbook
that helps people name babies. I miss, I guess,
the one who should have been Ruth, whose name
I stole and wore. I took a little
of her as collateral damage. 
Outside Pasco
Rosalie Ruth Moffett
Weird Prayers