Rosalie Ruth Moffett

Sometimes a twin absorbs her sibling

in the womb. My mother bled a little,

so maybe I did this. I knew

even then what sympathy was: another

discomfort. Nonetheless, they named me Ruth

which is a kind of compassion

nobody wants anymore—the surviving half

of the pair of words is ruthless.

My ecoterrorism handbook says

through the floor of the new strip mall.

Like Ruth, the Moabite, I desire

to be something that can't be

gotten rid of easily. Loyal, she gleaned

in the grain, and maybe something went on

with Boaz on the threshing floor in the dark

one morning. All this I read in the Bible

which is a kind of handbook

that helps people name babies. I miss, I guess,

the one who should have been Ruth, whose name

I stole and wore. I took a little

of her as collateral damage.