Jezebel

when I neared

the fraught age of

early adolescence

my mother relayed

the legend of an infant

resplendent in white silk & lace

stowed away on an ocean liner

departing Le Havre

approaching New York

the captain pressed for

a Christian benefactor

from those traveling first class

e.g., my great-great-grandfather

an Episcopal divine

this child became

my great-grandmother Genevieve

when any woman in our family

strayed, whether they

dropped out of school or used drugs

shacked up or got knocked up

or married down or

heaven forfend, divorced

my mother hastened to blame

that foreign blood

women have more to lose

than men, she’d say

& warn me once again 

about that Jezebel, a cousin

reputed to fool around

hubris not to be condoned

only men

could play Don Juan