After Abel
At harvest, we brought offerings.
Laid cross-wise with the grain, each of my sheaves
mingled gold with green.
His lamb chewed the tips,
left them to sag drooped to the ground,
defiled them.
And my altar coughed rheumatic smoke—
grey and black twined about me
as they pulled downward
against the soft white puffs rising from his.
In a bleat, my vision flooded with red;
I staggered blindly past, pounded
my feet into the ground,
howled like the wolf.
It was done in a moment;
he laid crosswise as the wheat had,
motionless.
I burned in a perfect pyre.
The color leached from our mother's face
when she heard, and she begged the Lord
to see that red leak back inside.
At harvest, we brought offerings.
Laid cross-wise with the grain, each of my sheaves
mingled gold with green.
His lamb chewed the tips,
left them to sag drooped to the ground,
defiled them.
And my altar coughed rheumatic smoke—
grey and black twined about me
as they pulled downward
against the soft white puffs rising from his.
In a bleat, my vision flooded with red;
I staggered blindly past, pounded
my feet into the ground,
howled like the wolf.
It was done in a moment;
he laid crosswise as the wheat had,
motionless.
I burned in a perfect pyre.
The color leached from our mother's face
when she heard, and she begged the Lord
to see that red leak back inside.