Four Women, v2

[busker]

Four Women
 

First there was the woman
who had to play a harlot
to claim even an inch

of her rights as a woman.
Then there was the harlot
who, in ancient parlance,

repented, although perhaps
she was called a harlot
simply because she was

a migrant, a foreign woman.
Then came this foreign woman
whose lot, in ancient parlance,

went much worse than harlot
when, during a famine,
with neither son nor brother,

her husband died of fever.
Finally came this woman
who had a migrant husband,

whose king first made her harlot
then widow then wife then mother
of his son and successor

while he became a hero,
an icon of repentance,
and she remained no more

than woman, wife, mother:
the last of the four women
mentioned by Saint Matthew
before the Ever-Virgin.

My knowledge of Christian tradition isn’t the best
Delila,, Ruth, Beersheba, Mariam?

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For me, not knowing the references came in the way of appreciating the poem fully. But that is not a problem in itself, as a more knowledgeable reader won’t have that difficulty

Other than that, I think the poem is fine as a piece of observation. But it is just a list. Could it be more than a list? That’s up to you.