when I neared the fraught age of early adolescence my mother relayed the legend of an infant resplendent in white silk & lace stowed away on an ocean liner departing Le Havre approaching New York the captain pressed for a Christian benefactor from those traveling first class e.g., my great-great-grandfather an Episcopal divine this child became my great-grandmother Genevieve when any woman in our family strayed, whether they dropped out of school or used drugs shacked up or got knocked up or married down or heaven forfend, divorced my mother hastened to blame that foreign blood women have more to lose than men, she’d say & warn me once again about that Jezebel, a cousin reputed to fool around hubris not to be condoned only men could play Don Juan