Rereading East of Eden After a Tour of the Reconciliation Village
Gabrielle Spear
...the Hebrew word, the word timshel—
‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice...Why,
that makes a man great...for in his...murder
of his brother he...can choose his course...
—Chapter 24
But what of the glittering instrument
without a choice to begin with?
What of the ladder to the stars
if the ladder is pulled from beneath your feet?
In my country, another Black mother mourns
her child slain by the state and the Black president mandates
reconciliation. Here, the Tutsi king fashions himself
a crown from the plucked bones of his conquest.
Dictates the living dead harvest a feast
of forgiveness in his honor.
Find me a land that is not a peace memorial
in the making.
Who am I to prescribe mercy
when I can barely touch myself?
Gabrielle Spear is a queer, chronically ill poet and educator based in Baltimore and raised in northwest Arkansas. She has been named a Brooklyn Poets Fellow and an inaugural member of Catapult's 12-Month Poetry Generator. Her work is most recently featured in Revolute, Protean Magazine, Catapult, Cotton Xenomorph, and the anthology A Land With a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism.