How I Learned Not To Speak

They were a hard and practical people,
     and when they said
          they were willing to serve me,
I took what they had to give:
               bowls of rain,
     prayer-husks filled with meat.

(Their firstborn, I.)

They cut my foreskin
     when heat was a prisoner in the ground.
The trees stood naked
     though the sun in Taurus rose.

When I ch