You,
sliced open to deliver a perfect son to your god,
crushed by my birth.  
I was not the one you wanted.

Abraham poised to kill his child –
to kill everything –
to prove devotion to a bottomless god.  

Your son died.  You-
prostrated before your god and wearing duplicity like vestments-
begged for a trade, me for him. 

“Not the one I’d have chosen,” 
your refrain.  

Not the one I’d have chosen.

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