It’s April. Chaff-rot boils
downstream, the grapefruits hang
going dry between green split tongues.
They close the Hermon at sunset these days,
shoot to kill at what moves in the night.
Abraham is always stabbing at Isaac
up there in those hills
while Sarah chokes down her bottle of pills.
It’s better than sitting by the TV set
with its rusty horns;
after all, she didn’t ask to come here
where it never rains.
Up there in the hills
maybe it was whiskey
or an angel or the climbing barometer
egging him on. No one expected it,
not since how rich he got—
nor Sarah to fashion a razor
from her compact mirror.
But so it goes. Abe fits a new hose
for the persimmons, pulls at his thumb
where the knife sliced through the web.
Meanwhile, Isaac, the dumb
lamb, is drawing maps in the sand.
He’s looking for a new girl to scoop
And pin up in the dark house.
He’ll take her away, her kerchief streaming
in the wind of the convertible. She’ll scrub
the last pale red stain from the bath,
and sing over the Sabbath candles,
which all April will flare like small, bloody suns.