Free will
is in our hands: in these bones lashed
by ligaments, sheathed
in skin. Flex your fingers wide, like folding fans,
collapse them in. Muscleless puppets,
they are merciless or tender depending
on what moves them. We can train
a single finger to hold a body's weight; all ten
together, to summon a sonata, birth a baby, ball
into clubs and beat a man to death. We tatters
of lace and crafters of skyscrapers
are the only animals who can make a fist.
How much simpler if our bodies' weapons
were separate, obvious as antlers. Yet,
the Talmud speaks of yetzer hara,
our evil inclination, as the source
of all creativity and desire— the same urge a spur
to make love and take someone
without consent, for righteous anger
and violent rage. Like the rabbis, some states
define a deadly weapon only
after the fact, by the damage
a thing caused. Like a break is both
an opportunity and a fracture; cleave,
to hold fast and split apart,
our hands--these broken hymns
of contronym
capable of such cruelty,
and also grace, hard chosen.
