The Breaking of the Law

Strapped to the bed of circumcision lies My son. This mutilation ties You to the fathers. They will never let You forget, or your flesh be enfranchised ever, Though you pray all your life long. They set you early on the rack, infect you with a fever Of remembering. In the marriage bed, When you are naked, there the sign is red. There is neither meeting nor mating but the past Cries that you've been waited for and wed already— I will not bless this mark upon your body. For you the hurricane is rising fast; I feel the horns of Moses in my head And Law wrenched again from the dead Hand of deity, and I descend out of the blast to you Mad with loneliness upon this bed. But I reserve also the rage That broke the Law upon you like a rain of stone That other time I saw you so could yearn. The Law is broken, baby. I will not ascend again.