Ten Plagues
“Angel, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Angel” by Amanda BH Slater
POETRY
by Raine Ferrara
I-
the maccabees threw glass.
saw their brothers handcuffed,
and swung long swords and spit venom.
they slashed through white sheets
and hunger and gauze and polite conversation.
under occupation,
the maccabees sang;
until the sacrificial pyres burned to black,
until they pulled the temple out from under rubble,
and prayed until the olive trees came back.
II-
jacob, blessed with twelve sons--
two wives, four women,
no brother--
speaks to god and begs.
“you, who named me Israel, and will not let me speak your name
why should I take my brother’s birthright?
and who is he to live in shame?
is this isolation? or separation from my slough?”
god responds, “what's black and red all over?"
and jacob wrestles with the answer, but nothing is enough
III-
aaron knows that 40 years is long.
he sees it in the eyes around him;
creased with grief, hair gray too young,
“how are we supposed to live like this?”
aaron knows this, but he cannot stop.
he hears the golden whispers of another god,
he’s feverish, delighted, horrified, ignited,
he throws another necklace in the kiln.
his work is all he has left, anymore.
he lets the calf’s flesh gild his sallow skin.
IV-
moses was pulled from the river,
and afterwards, he ate on silver platters.
golden hummus, emerald oil,
bleached white pyramids and crystal blue diamonds,
an empire for his every whim.
moses could have been king.
Instead, head full of sand, he prays;
“who is like you, god, who else will hear me.”
the prophet lets himself get drenched,
and he speaks in to the sea.
V-
dinah, vindicated,
lanced through twelve layers of armor
and a soldier’s soul,
sits in cold comfort and torn underclothes when she learns;
all those men struck guilty on a passing glance,
simeon and levi, under cover of night and recent blood,
all those little ones, all those wives.
her brothers whetted her defilement with gore.
dinah, judged, whispers;
no more, no more.
VI-
joseph dreamt of golden corn
and summer winds and fitting ends.
under the shade of his sister’s soul,
he chose to live his days in tapestry.
this was his shame, his heinous sin.
when joseph was reduced to flesh,
dark eyes wide in the august breeze,
they hid his coat and blamed the goats instead.
they say, in canaan, joseph will be free,
but when the deed was done they stained his rainbow red.
VII-
isaac was supposed to go down softly.
bound by a love of his father, he smells rope and cedar and a mountain breeze,
feels something sharp at his father’s hip.
god loves the quiet, the gentle, the weak,
and abraham binds him as he cries, so isaac know that he agrees.
but he whispered with an angel late last night.
no stars surveying, not a soul to tell.
it said “one day god will reward this sacrifice”
but isaac doesn’t have one day to waste
so when his father leans in close, he bites.
VIII-
noah’s gotten good at counting deaths by twos.
his neighbors; the baker, and his strong-palmed wife,
his doctor, his tailor
limbs twirling unbound, sins unknown
god says, “spare the rod, spoil the child.”
god says, “stop flinching, I’m not touching you.”
god starts selling permits for the newly vacant Sodom.
noah, in his seabound stable, feels sick.
he tells his new neighbor, the dove, “fear god and be good”
he prays for her sake that the lessons stick
IX-
two mothers grasp a living child
(the other is in the ground, black with ash)
they come wailing, nowhere else to go.
If a nation falls in a forest,
who will stay to hear its mother’s cries?
solomon will stay!
two mothers breathe in relief.
with a heart of law and logic, his illuminating eyes survey.
let’s be peaceful, he says, let’s be civilized.
he rips the child in two and hopes it stays that way.
X-
david, barely thirteen,
stared daggers at metal hulls;
american goliaths,
fat on slick black hardtack,
the growl of the engine cuts his gums to bone.
born under bloody penumbra,
he can feel it in his throat,
the only tune he ever knew;
david smoothed a stone on his palm
and threw