Bitter

Miriam dies in this week's portion, in a single sentence sandwiched between the laws of purity and the incident at Meribah, where G-d instructs Moses to "tell the rock" to yield its water, and he strikes it instead, resulting in G-d's refusal to let him enter into the Promised Land. Not surprisingly, I've always felt a kinship with Miriam and no small resentment that she often seems to get the short end of the stick. Her very name means "bitter."

My mother, placid, lucid, already gray,
considered—between the moment of quickening
and my emergence into the harsh light
of Labor and Delivery—if pressed
to name me for my father’s long-dead aunt,
at least she’d add fillip of romance:
Miriamne, like the heroine
in Winterset. She settled for the Bible,
ignoring the root—marah—so I am bitter,
reading the story of my namesake, a prophet
who wasn't even gathered to her kin;
whose greatest gift was to repeat in dance
whatever her favored younger brother said;
whose punishment was to be rimed with scales
for the utter chutzpah of her claim
to speak with G-d, as still I try to do.