My mother bled each moon, once they had left,
Or so she said, and when the appetite
Seized my father, he brought forth the bright
And useful blade, the one he learned to heft
To feed us and the dark ground – the field, cleft,
Accepted seed and blood, an appetite
That was less choosy, less, say, recondite,
That took the second best and the bereft
Unlike that other. Who could please His whim?
I fed myself and marked the ground I tended.
It kept me well enough. And what of him,
What keeping did he need? When all was ended,
Did I not give the best? I fed the two-
Both ground and God – that lambkin that I slew.