//creative//
Fall 2017
Neither Mine Nor Yours
Noah Avigan
On the day of judgement
I fell to envy, rancor fuelled by
Uncontrollable love for that child.
Which?
I could not remember.
I never knew.
That night--
The fresh stain
And the lifeless form below me, crushed,
Smothered to eternal rest in maternal love--
As I exchanged the other woman’s infant for mine,
I convinced myself I loved it too.
She deferred to His Majesty’s Judgement
The wise king, successor of the Davidic line
Desperate, I determined it could be neither mine nor hers
And longed for the moment I could hold the half with its head.
Or perhaps,
Its feet.
Every night I stare at the stain below me,
Forever close to my breast in this cold bed,
And wonder how my own jealousy
Allowed that woman to walk away with the boy,
How I suffocated my child and was willing to kill
My other.
That woman whose eyes now wander towards mine
And then back to the child that she draws close,
The child that she now can justly care for,
Keeping him close
And still closer at night--
And I know the fault is my own.
And yet,
When I see her across the room
At peace, holding that child in her arms--
My child--
I know I would still cut it in two
And take half over nothing.
I fell to envy, rancor fuelled by
Uncontrollable love for that child.
Which?
I could not remember.
I never knew.
That night--
The fresh stain
And the lifeless form below me, crushed,
Smothered to eternal rest in maternal love--
As I exchanged the other woman’s infant for mine,
I convinced myself I loved it too.
She deferred to His Majesty’s Judgement
The wise king, successor of the Davidic line
Desperate, I determined it could be neither mine nor hers
And longed for the moment I could hold the half with its head.
Or perhaps,
Its feet.
Every night I stare at the stain below me,
Forever close to my breast in this cold bed,
And wonder how my own jealousy
Allowed that woman to walk away with the boy,
How I suffocated my child and was willing to kill
My other.
That woman whose eyes now wander towards mine
And then back to the child that she draws close,
The child that she now can justly care for,
Keeping him close
And still closer at night--
And I know the fault is my own.
And yet,
When I see her across the room
At peace, holding that child in her arms--
My child--
I know I would still cut it in two
And take half over nothing.
//Noah Avigan is a first-year in Columbia College. He can be reached at nea2126@columbia.edu.