The room smells
of stagnant water
that licks my
trembling knees.
A door emits
the only light,
moonbeams that streak
through
the dried blood
on the
walls.
I stand with
a strange woman.
A wife I
have never seen
before.
To me she
hands a strange
baby.
A son I
have never met
before.
Without a word,
I take an
old saw,
scarred by years
of service,
and slowly, methodically,
I cut the
newborn flesh
in a twisted
Biblical scene.
I don’t stop,
I don’t hesitate,
not even when
the woman’s
dead fingers splash
in the water
next to the
bleeding— I wake
up.
I don’t scream,
my pillow is not wet
from fright sweat.
I sit up.
I am scared
I am scared—
not of the
images,
not of the
horror chamber I’ve
just visited. I
am scared that I
was not scared.
I was never
scared.
The living dying
on my bare
fingers,
and I never
flinched, never looked
away.
Where are the
hollers of the
nightmare?
Where is the
restlessness of the
dream?
What am I
capable of?
Why can’t I
feel?
I fall back
asleep, dreaming
of sand, the
bones of dead
gods and Fiddler’s
Green.
(2002)
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