Purim Sestina

Avigayil Finkelstein

July 2025

 

“Hearken now to the words of the king,”

Proclaim the criers in every province, town, and city.

“You are hereby summoned to a feast

Where the king’s generosity will flow as wine—

In a nearby chamber, a banquet hosted by the queen.

Only a fool would choose to stay home.”

 

On the seventh day, with revelers crowding the perfumed gardens of his home,

While his mind marinates in meat and mead, an idea comes to the king,

Who struts before his satraps and subjects to summon his queen

And parade her, stripped bare, before his decadent capital city.

The idea seems wise to a king soused with wine.

He longs to see her tread where eyes may feast.

 

Some time since that fateful feast

A young girl turns back for a final glimpse of home.

For there is no undoing a decision doused in wine.

The law knows no regret, even if you are king.

The girl hides inside herself, far from her home in the capital city.

Farther still from the city which had once reigned as queen.

 

“You are fortunate,” they say, “to be chosen as queen.”

“Here in the palace, each day is a feast.”

She speaks nothing of her people, worlds away in the same city.

For a myrtle tree, the king’s garden is no home.

An advisor comes to seek council with the king.

“There is a people,” he says, “whose blood ought flow like wine.”

 

After, they lounge on cushioned chairs and clink their cups of wine.

A man in sackcloth brings word to a trembling queen.

Weak from fasting, she stands before the king.

He dips his golden rod, accepts an invitation to a feast.

A sneering vizier preens to his wife back home—

Beneath a pale moon, a sleepless king contemplates his city.

 

Chaos and confusion abound through the city.

“This is the man,” she accuses, pointing to the one who shares their wine.

“Would you assault my queen in my own home!?”

For this moment, she knows, she has risen to queen.

“Write me for generations”—and so, every year, a feast.

For at last they know they have not been abandoned by The King.

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