Bathsheba Bathing, by Alec Solomita

Bathsheba Bathing, by Jean Bourdichon (France) 1498

​Bathsheba Bathing
 
The living doll in the sun spilled fountain 
flicks the water’s sleeping surface 
and the sparkling nimbus catches
the eye of the starry-eyed king 
restless upon the roof,
who, in no time, 
clouds the air with 
his own seed-strewn milky way,
deadlier than a slung stone.
 
And faithful Uriah rolls in his
sleep with a proleptic moan.
 
King David sends and inquires
after the woman. The wife, they
tell him, of Uriah the Hittite.
And David sends messengers
 
and takes her. Her lips are like
a thread of scarlet, her skin is 
dark and comely, clear as
the copper Spring of Gihon. 
 
And faithful Uriah rolls in his
sleep with a doleful moan
 
The royal baitsim of the young king
are full of vigor and he plants
Bathsheba like a fertile field,
filling her with life that very night.  
They rut like teenagers until,
too sore to move, they sleep
the easy sleep of youth till dawn.
 
And faithful Uriah, on the field of 
battle under the rolling sky,
troubles his own sleep with a ragged moan.

Alec Solomita

Alec Solomita is a writer and artist working in Massachusetts. His fiction, poetry, and art have appeared in many journals and anthologies.