By Enid Dame

    kicked myself out of paradise
    left a hole in the morning
    no note no goobye

    the man I lived with
    was patient and hairy

    he cared for the animals
    worked late at night
    planting vegetables
    under the moon

    sometimes hed hold me
    our long hair tangled
    he kept me from rolling
    off the planet

    it was
    always safe there
    but safety

    wasn't enough. I kept nagging
    pointing out flaws
    in his logic

    he carried a god
    around in his pocket
    consulted it like

    a watch or an almanac

    it always proved
    I was wrong

    two against one
    isn't fair! I cried
    and stormed out of Eden
    into history:

    the Middle Ages
    were sort of fun
    they called me a witch
    	

    I kept dropping
    in and out
    of peoples sexual fantasies

    now

    I work in New Jersey
    take art lessons
    live with a cabdriver

    he says, baby
    what I like about you
    is your sense of humor

    sometimes
    I cry in the bathroom
    remembering Eden
    and the man and the god
    I couldn't live with

LILITH'S NEW CAREER

By Enid Dame

"No other she-demon has ever achieved as fantastic a career as Lilith."

                Raphel Patai
                THE HEBREW GODDESS

    In the last years of the century,
    Lilith became Director of Freshman Composition
    at an engineering college.
    This career advance surprised her.
    Her talents didn't fit the job description.
    She never dreamed they'd take her.

    This story is the same in many cultures:
    in Gilgamesh Sumer in Kabbalistic Poland.
    The girl always starts out at the bottom
    a lowly female demon always on the night shift
    always ends up somehow at the top
    of something, for an eyeblink
    before they find her out.

    It was more exciting in the old days
    when she got to sleep with God.

    Now she learns computer terminology
    chooses textbooks hires tutors
    makes coffee for the whole department.

    Her computer keeps feeding her messages.
    An image trembles on the screen then disappears.
    Where did it go? Nobody here can tell her.
    It's a miracle! The techies treat it casually
    as shed once treated Adam
    or her own history.

    She makes her inner office
    into a sort of garden
    not unlike the one shed left:
    ferns swirl steamily in radiator heat,
    primroses change color,
    Wandering Jew shoots off toward the ceiling,
    Swedish ivy hunkers down among his roots.

    She brings in yardsale lamps with maps around their bases.
    Lights are soft brown moons here cats eyes stare from wallboard.
    Her owls drop feathers on industrial gray carpet.
    She could take off her clothes here.
    But she never does.

    Once she spilled coffee
    down computers innards.
    It typed a message for her
    backward, on the monitor:
    MESSIAHS GOTTEN STUCK IN TRAFFIC.
    THIS PINHEADS GETTING CROWDED.
    THE ANGELS AREN'T DANCING.

    Her students
    are mostly earnest boys from other countries.
    They want to make it in America.
    They know computer language.
    But private stories scare them.
    Especially their own.

    They come to office hours
    to protest their grades.
    She fidgets with her hair
    (cut short now, but still red),
    tries to seduce them
    into writing poetry.