This Scribe, My Hand by Ben Belitt

Author:Ben Belitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 1998-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE ORPHANING

1. A Failed Rage

Clear Idiot, I understand.

The adversary

need not be struck, or the blow

returned. Your foreknowledge of the deed

is enough, and proves mighty. You named it Innocency:

the receptive faculty, the negative power, and wore it

under the recoil of the loved hand and the hated hand

falling equally, falling always. You said:

“Yes, I know. The blow comes as I knew it would come.

I foresaw it all. I am not angry.” You turned

into your secrecy, smiled for a world’s

perfidy, and denied yourself the act.

All this was false.

The act alone is innocent, and sweetens.

The child strikes with his fist in the womb’s haven

and the father replies with the lover’s spasm. Spend.

Reply. What was kept has betrayed you. See:

the rage fails, the restorative rage, and the hate

talks with its cause over the infamous pit,

touching nothing.

Your awkwardness with tools, all

the gear of action, your poor record at the shooting range,

are the fruit of a denial. Raise the gun to your shoulder.

It is heavier than you knew. Slam the bolt to.

It will not lock to your blow.

Only what is given, is. Only the act returns.

Be returned.

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