Section 16 from 'Draft 85: Hard Copy' Poem by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

I won't quote a word,
but that notable double-crossing chess game
reveals trouble in the desert,
trouble in the lineage, trouble in the choices,
trouble in the allegory.

What more to say about the Father of everything
from the inevitable, suspicious, atheist
daughter
watching the claim made around the one—
the beautiful, longed-for, pensive son.

They are all male singletons:
one A, one I and one One
(undercounting various brothers
who do not matter in the tally;


nor enumerating most sisters,
though they certainly existed).

Single, except for the One who sent an
androgyne messenger
who rammed the ram into the thicket,
who filled the curly ewe,
who took her mewling newborn sheep.

Thereupon the regime of human sacrifice
was declared theologically finished.
But not politically and ideologically finished.

Clear enough?