by Bonnie Naradzay
 |
| CAIN ET ABEL (CAIN AND ABEL), 1960, an original color lithograph by Marc Chagall designed for and published by VERVE for the volume Dessins pour La Bible. |
If I gave the best when I offered my sheep
while your harvest fell short of the mark,
why turn against me? There was still time–
Now my blood cries out from the ground
you have claimed as your own. You know
the land mine you rigged to me will explode.
Alas, the loaf of bread I’d held, this pool of blood.
How could you choose to bludgeon my cows,
to wreak your vengeance against them too?
We are brothers; yet you attacked my humanity,
dragged me with your arms. Let me feel the snow
fall across my face as I say goodbye to life.
Bonnie Naradzay’s poems have appeared in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review Online, Tampa Review, Florida Review Online, EPOCH, Pinch (Pushcart nomination), Potomac Review, and others. Her essay on friendship was published in 2020 in the anthology Deep Beauty. For many years she has convened poetry salons with homeless people and with residents of retirement communities in the Washington DC area.