Sometimes The Killing Blow Does Not End-Lee Uhen
Sometimes The Killing Blow Does Not End
By Lee Uhen
Father discovered my excellent arms
when I was thirteen, when I was shattering
crows’ beaks with the perfection of years
devoted to stone’s subtle arc, its lethal spin.
He led me to a cell in the corner of our
barn; it was cold but for the meat that stood
before us. "You watch careful, son,"
father rumbled. I watched them: goaded in,
beaten, hung from tangled chains, hauled
out. I watched them crumple one by one,
watched them for hours—until I wasn’t
sure they’d been alive at all. I scried every
hollow, learned every curve of the skull,
and where to strike it, and how as my sympathy
twisted into a snarl as thick and unforgiving
as the fists that gripped the hammer that I wield
now. Father would be proud. "The killing blow
don’t blink. It don’t think one second ’bout
what’s behind those eyes cuz it knows ain’t
gonna be’s as good as never was." He
mumbled to the wall to avoid my shame
collecting in pools of crimson and saline.
I still hear it. The first time I was too hesitant,
the hammer too dense with what I thought
was sorrow—I know now it was indifference.
At the final moment my heart twitched. There
was a wet thud. A groan. It was down on two
knees. Leaning. "Again boy, quickly." I swing
and I swing and its bone splinters and its skin
splits and still it is groaning. Again. And again.
Copyright C. 2008 Lee Uhen