My son’s name was Isaac―

It still is, from what I gather,

So call me Abraham, 

For I have raised the knife to his chest.

I raised it in the early mornings 

When I left the house still cold,

I raised it when I worked the overtime,

And missed his evening laughter.

I had left for the old paper mill

Where I flayed the trees to rolls of white

And pulverized the earth to blankness.

I raised the knife when I taught him to wrestle,

To take on the world with his own hands

But was not there to watch him battle,

To teach him how to straddle strife.

I felt the blade in my hand 

Every time I pulled the lever,

And the blank sheets of paper would roll on and on―

A blank verse never uttered.

And the mountains howled in the distance,

And my son shivered in my white silence.

He has left this land now,

And I have just retired,

I know his name but little more.

He knows where I worked and that I did, 

but little more.

So when they asked me to coach his old team,

A batch of vibrant wrestlers,

I scoffed at the boys 

Who rambled with vibrating indirection.

My knees would creak and and grumble,

As they watched and learned the art

Of taking on the universe, in the circle of the mat.

My bones felt old and aged,

As I watched them fight an scramble

The shroud of youth eternal,

In the glimmer of their irises.

And I heard the voice of God,

One day during our practice,

When I saw them shimmer golden

in the glowing of the wrestling room.

And I felt my bones release

The knife which I had raised

So many years ago.

And those rolls of white paper

Finally had a story

Worth the flaying of the trees,

And worth the raising of the knife.

Though my bones are creaking, 

My son is distant and afar,

These boys here who shimmer,

Taught me how to die.

The knife has fallen from me, 

Has shattered loudly

Upon the altar of my soul.

Do not call me Abraham,

For him I am no more.