Sarah Laughed

One of the joys of reading Torah every year is discovering how the story changes for me as I enter new phases of my life. Before I had children, I never noticed how much of Genesis was about sibling rivalry. Now that I have gray hair and wrinkles, I have a new understanding of Sarah, who, the Bible tells us, laughed when she was told that she would bear a child despite the fact that “the way of women had ceased for her” (Genesis 18:11). Sarah, at least, laughed inwardly. The text says that Abraham fell on his face laughing at the idea. While Abraham is clearly incredulous that Sarah will become pregnant, Sarah’s laughter seems more complex. She asks, “Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment—with my husband so old?” (18:13) Reading the passage this year, I thought about what it might be like for a woman my age to have to compete with younger wives or concubines for a husband’s attention.

What surprised her most was not the son
the angels promised but that Abraham
might still be hungry for her shrunken charms
after that disastrous dalliance
with the Egyptian girl,* and now Keturah
insinuating herself like the incense
she was named for under the flap of his tent.
Not that Sarah envied her the work;
these days his tastes ran more to breeding sheep,
telling tales of Ur—an old man’s pleasures.
And what had Sarah left to rouse him with?
Her face was furrowed like a dune; her hair
silver as the cuffs she’d borne each day
since her father gave them as her bride price.
Would her husband suck at her slack breast
let alone a child? Eons ago
their marriage had devolved into a laugh
like one they’d share tonight remembering
this prediction while the desert cooled
like cakes on a brick, and he squinted at her
across the darkness and the cooking fire,
trying to make out the lineaments
of someone he had once desired. Still,
she’d go and wash her hair with henna now,
splash her bosom with Egyptian musk.

*Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden, whom she “gives” to Abraham in order that he may have a son, Ishmael
*Abraham’s second wife, whom he married after Sarah’s death