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signified by three Arabic letters
to make it all clear—
but those letters
said, read:
bring the body to a stop,
halt feeling,
that even the best of women
would have given in to
had they not been said,
nay, been at the start
of the Narration.
She was instructed to care for her child
until she had the feeling of fear,
then launch him onto the river
where he would drift
until he came to the region of the enemy:
(My child, I have done this with you,
have delivered you directly into the hands
of the rejecter.)
Then she was not to feel fear,
not to grieve.
She asked in the morning
what to do
and was told to forgive,
command the right
and turn away from ignorance.
Everything she applied to herself,
and before noon
she knew she must ask for forgiveness
for having wronged her soul
for having slain the man
who was stronger than she.
That she, or anyone
could casually slice
me: oh these ones who have wronged
me: what am I going
to do about you, you
keep compounding; now
I have three, four of you
actively itching underneath
my skin. By the time I am
sixty, how many more? No,
one, there's just one, and we
have supposedly made a
truce (by the grace of God),
but God almighty it's loose—
threadbare, a document
fragile, whatever is solved
by words. Besides, the words
were not spoken. I didn't, she
didn't speak them: it was a
thread that went across the
Atlantic, that whisper that
I didn't need: no, that wasn't
it that . . .
where was that resolve?
I beg your pardon for my
hatred.
The knife crossed the fingers at 1:00.
The line of blood appeared
shortly thereafter: a wonder that
you could have done that to yourself:
I know the boxes flies inscribe
on the inner area of a room.
