CAIN'S VISIT

a prose poem

Noam Hessler

"Still from Othello (1967), dir. Fyodor Khitruk"

Friday evening I took a walk down the road to meet my sons. Put white corks on yellow teeth — sharp —, covered my sores all nice with makeup. Slid my hairy bulk into a suit like an innertube put through a hydraulic press. All pretty.

I asked a man who claimed to till the Earth who my sons were. I hadn’t met them. He said: Your sons are those beasts I keep; along a long and winding ditch I met a fishing man and asked him who my sons were. He said: Your sons are those things I Want, and he scowled, because he had not caught a fish for we were talking. They sit outside a great house, and all around. I thanked him for his knowledge.

I killed him and I washed my hands in the river, the sores slid out. Drawn to the blood. I’d bitten off my killing hands, they came back. Drawn to me.

I walked past a chapel on a hill. A priest sat on the steps not drinking. A man passed by carrying a bucket of water. Ham’s son, the priest said, and spat. Ham was not my son so I smiled and paid little mind to it. I walked on.

I came to a great house surrounded by fields. In the fields were many, some feasting upon the others. They held their tongues in their hands — bitten them off, held them. Wise — flesh is life. The feasted-upon men bled, the feasters licked it. Drawn. On the porch of the hall sat men drinking or not drinking all dressed all pretty.

They were as beasts; all around they sat on the great house porch; I wanted them with a father’s love! My sons! And how many I’d passed on the road, or killed, not knowing them. Tricky boys. As my boy Grendel did I stepped into the hall to meet them, hold them, ask them to rustle up their Father and their King some dinner.

Noam Hessler is an American poet. They recently released a book called Officeparks. They live in New York and Vermont, and can be reached online via Twitter @poetryaccnt1518. Further information about them and their work can be found at their author page here: https://farthestheaven.com/pages/noam-hessler.