"Her Father Talks to Her About Sex" by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose

Think of Eve, naked and ashamed. Think of your runaway sister, forever exiled from your father’s love. Think of Delilah. Of Jezebel. Lot’s wife.

Photo by Caleb Woods / Unsplash

If your right hand offends, chop it off,

throw it away. Better for you

to lose one part of yourself than

suffer your whole body to burn.

Throw it away. Better for you

to pluck out your eye. If you don’t

suffer, your whole body will burn.

Better to be blind. Better to starve.

Pluck out your eye. If you don’t,

think of Eve, naked and ashamed.

Better to be blind. Better to starve

than be exiled from your Father’s love.

Think of Eve, naked and ashamed.

Think of your runaway sister, forever

exiled from your father’s love.

Think of Delilah. Of Jezebel. Lot’s wife.

Think of your runaway sister, forever.

Think of those girls, opening their legs.

Think of Delilah. Of Jezebel. Lot’s wife.

Cut off your tongue. Cut out your heart.

Think of those girls, opening their legs.

Suffer. Your whole body burns.

Cut off your tongue. Cut out your heart.

Throw it away. Better for you.

Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose (she/her) is the author of two chapbooks: Wild Things, (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (winner, Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022). Her writing appears or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, The Sun, McSweeney’s, Lunch Ticket, Verse Daily, and The Massachusetts Review, among others. Awarded the 2025 Betsy Colquitt Poetry Prize, Elizabeth teaches writing and gender studies in Rochester, NY where she also leads trauma-writing workshops at the Breast Cancer Coalition and serves on the board of Just Poets. Elizabeth reads for Trio House Press.