The wood, the fire, and the knife—
three tools conferred to men
by gods for sacrifice
to cut, to bleed, to burn.

Father Abraham
mastered the ritual first:
to slake the deity’s thirst
he offered a kid before the ram.

And though his hand was stayed,
the sacrifice remained—
his faith at last betrayed,
the patriarch unnamed.

“Now I know you fear the LORD,”
the angel hovering ‘round him said,
“for in the end Isaac’s tender head
was made the price of your reward.”

Sacrifice prevailed that nightwhen fatherhood gave up its lifebeneath the mightof the wood, the fire, and the knife