Abraham

Not every child you choose chooses you back.
But I heard only what I longed to hear. Sons.
I, stooped and leather-skinned, would yet
father a tribe. Grains of sand, He said. A pour
of desert stars. I didn’t tell myself, negotiate.
Ask Him, not how many, but how good.

Lot was my first. I loved him as my brother
and my son. A slender boy, smooth-talking
and sleek-muscled. Just a snake, skilled at
shedding skins. He could not help himself—
he struck whoever laid a hand on him. 
There are gifts you cannot give away.

Then my boy Ishmael took me by storm.
Spike-haired as lightning, thunder voice.
Wildness flickered in his eyes. A black
wolf from his birth, to the wrong mother.
I packed him off and threw away my heart.
There are gifts you are not meant to keep.

Last came my Isaac, my unluckiest. Such
a silent child, a watcher, pliable. In short,
a sheep, not a man. Wouldn’t you want to
shake him up, strike him to make him act?
Go ahead, laugh, that’s how I lost him.
There are gifts you get in name alone.