Isaac said you asked
about me. My mother and the angel insist
I be civil in my letters. I don’t want
to be civil. I do not love you, Sarah. And I know you don’t me but I love Mama and Papa
and I love the angel too, so.
Let me tell you,
very plainly.
I want to hit you. I want to bite you
and draw blood.
I want to stand you out, set an apple on your head, and show you what a marksman I’ve
become.
I want to shred your insides, because maybe, if I hurt you
like Isaac did, your face would be warm
when you look at me. And maybe? Look
at yourself. Have you seen your eyes widen, how your gaze
narrows into knives when it lands on me? Do you remember that night, a few winters
before Isaac, when the rain came down solid? Rain seldom fell, let alone
bits of frozen sky that land in my palms, bleed to puddles, and escape through spaces
between my fingers. My chest pulled taut, reminded me to breathe
again, so I released
the breath I’d been holding
for as long as I can remember—it slipped out a sigh and Sarah sent her knife gaze plunging
into my throat. “Stop that,” she spat. “It’s annoying. Breathe
normally.” Well, how could I,
now? With the back of my mouth flooded with the flavor of meat
burnt to a spidering corpse.
I never broke the news to Mama that I was a bust—too much a burden
to hear breath going in and out of me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan
of me breathing myself, but even I know you can’t control it more than a minute
before you pass out.
Isaac said his wrists
are still bruised. And rope was tied so tight round his ankles he feared a tendon
would snap.
My brother wondered
what he might have done wrong and feared
naivete a new sin.
“I dropped a ram in a bush nearby,” says the angel. “And gave the old
bastard a mouthful. Goddamn fool.” Could you hear me and Mama crying
even when we couldn’t see camp anymore? Could you hear the tearing
of our clothes? Could you taste
blood on your lips, sand on your tongue, iron fist
from cracked gums? Maybe it was me—maybe, I woke you one night
when I rammed my head against a wall over and over
to suffocate my wildfires? Would you kiss
bruises on my brow? Is your touch warm yet,
Sarah?
Mama told me that when she awoke
from childbirth, Papa cradled her hands and held me
swaddled close to his chest. She said you stood close,
tears welling in your eyes as you gazed
on who you thought was our promise. So whose idea
was this? Who asked her husband to lay
with my mother? Who lacked faith
in our God, asked instead her handmaid—her
slave—to lay with my father so divinely promised child
might be born? Whose idea
was me? Who sees two brothers, hands buried deep
in sand in search of heaven, calls the eldest
slave unworthy to inherit the same as her
son? Whose idea was it to throw me
away? You and I both know
the answers. Sarah, I’d say I’m sorry
I can’t be owned properly but if the birth of this slave freed two then I will
count my self a blessing. “Proto-Moses, Neo-Ishmael,” says the angel
over my shoulder. Isaac is not your sole
son.
As much as I want to rip you asunder
with words, the angel still insists I be gentle. You are one
of my mothers, after all. But the angel doesn’t get it, doesn’t know
difference between mother and child, driver and slave. But
the angel heard me
and sees me human. And you?
So, Sarah,
may my words find you fast, may ink web down fibers of papyrus, may word bleed to word
into word, may these words be a stone in a field, may you rise
to your feet, march to your son, and wrap him
in embrace. Then, when you hug him next, may you feel the ink of my words
pierce from Isaac’s arms.