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The Old Testament
- University of Pittsburgh Press
- Chapter
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the old testament n . Genesis april. the lilies rearing their forked heads and wet clouds, those dumb sheep, crouched above the horizon. Sunday and the long hours after church congealed on the plate like the habitual roast and gravy. nap. drive to the comic book store. nancy and Sluggo, adults pretending to be children, or archie and veronica, children pretending to be adults. Such privileged childhoods, yet my sister hid in my mother’s belly and vowed never to come out, not in this life, while the day crept uphill like water in a world without gravity. Who could blame her? Later, the sirens, the call. My cousin and his friend playing cavalry, the word they always said wrong, said calvary. and the rifle that was never loaded was loaded. it put his eye out, my grandmother said, and for hours it was as though that blue eye sat in the middle of the kitchen table, atomic and fierce, staring up at me. Could it have been weeping? this was the boy who teased till it bled, the family favorite, beautiful blue-eyed boy who would be beautiful no longer. the sun hissed and slithered away in the grass. at the corner store, i asked for candy and told what i knew, happy to be the bearer of bad news. i was proud of it. this was the beginning. and this is what knowledge brought me: sometimes i still feel the snake curled deep inside me, squeezing . Exodus “bite her back!” my mother said. She held the neighbor girl by the arms, and the girl cried and struggled to get away. on my arm a tattoo of teeth marks filling with blood. She’d tugged at it, amosandra, the “colored” baby doll, but i wouldn’t let go. even when she bit me, i wouldn’t let go. and my mother, the same mother who always told me never to hurt anyone, my mother commanded me like god commanding Moses, Nor must you show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. elbow for elbow, she said. i feared using my terrible powers, but what could i do? the Law had spoken and i had to obey. i bit her back then, same place, just below the left elbow, doing the work the Lord ordained and my mother—what did she do?— my mother smiled and let her go. ...