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A Bloody Husband
A bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision. Exodus, IV, 26
Now February's name is March;
The winds chose for us: flood or parch,
And bare the shoddy earth below
The soft irrelevance of snow.
The child's hand tears the leaf from leaf
To learn time's names and will believe
The boundaries of the calendar,
Though all the grievous blood demur
And flow from twenty-eight to one,
To cry, "The season's never done;
Time bides no circumcision!"
O love, I lay and could not weep
Between those bright angelic teeth,
Head, neck and chest, down to the balls,
For my God's sake and for the false
Delays, delays! You took the stone
And hacked the foreskin from my son
Till God's mouth freed me and I stood
In all that bleeding, free of blood;
Then cried, "O bloody husband!" and
Wept into your sullied hand,
Until the child began to weep,
And cast his flesh before my feet.
LesLıe A. FIEDLER