SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue Two - Journal - Page 39
SINE QUA NON
always return devoid of answers. & how does one exorcise
their fear, their demon, without orst knowing it by name?
|e fear of one's father: Patrophobia, & that of becoming
like one's father: [ ]phobia, are so closely knit. Yin & Yang.
Intricate knots of familial scars. In both instances, a blade
hacks into the cardboard wall of a boy's happiness.
& sometimes I wonder—after the incident—the coldness of
the blade against the supple nesh of his neck—if Isaac ever
called Abraham father, without orst skinning the word of its
magic—neecing it of every semblance of warmth.
Anne Marie Wells
Granting Grace to the Grandmother Who Abandoned My Mother
at Age Nine But Who Refused to Sign Any Adoption Papers, So
My Mother Signed Her Own When She Turned Eighteen
& what did he feel then, when the blade left nothing but
a bruise on his neck? When from the snare of a thicket, a ram
bleated out the cry of his salvation—fear or hatred—for
the father, or the God that asked a thing so ruthless of him?
In André Gide9s words: |ere are very few monsters who deserve
the fear we have of them. & so I denounce what fear,
what aphotic memories link me to that frightened kid I
once was, & not this man I am striving so hard to grow into.
& now, across the street in the green expanse of tall grasses,
A congregation of egrets—like moving white kerchiefs, keep
faithful to their work on the cattle's silken backs. How I
envy the simplicity of their white lives. |eir feathered gifts.
In my experience with symbiosis, a father claws the light
out of His son, with His osts, feasts on the succulence of the
boy's smile, until he is left with a body graotied in scars.
|e father's words, sharpened like the fangs of a deadly viper.
His ost, the swift harrowing sting of the emperor scorpion.
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