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Bargain Ken Shiovitz Please don’t think I am trying to slide out of our deal, For I am no weasel. It’s just that, after nearly 60 years of attempted
compliance, I might better appreciate to what terms we actually agreed. Perhaps it would be easier to call our deal a “bargain,” Instead of frightfully formal title, “The Covenant,” But considering the continued inheritance now by 200
generations, I concede that it is more than just another business
negotiation. Still, it sounds pretty bizarre on the surface: You let me live for a while and call myself one of the
“chosen people,” And in exchange, someone slices off a ring of skin From around my sexual organ. You promise us a share in a piece of real estate That is two-thirds desert, Surrounded by countless others, who have made this same
deal, Each subgroup citing a further promise of commitment. Please don’t think that I am complaining, For I know my place, Understand that the alternative is fiery death or subtle
assimilation, Accept that other people do good deeds and receive praise. Also, I understand that you cannot be fooled, As you are omniscient and omnipotent and all that, So I won’t try any weak explanations, like, “I’m experimenting with pork.” Incidentally, it might have been nice to know the taste of
pork, or What it feels like to fiddle with a foreskin, But I do understand consequences, that upon the walls of
Jericho, Both my deceit and my descent would have been cut off. So I have come to realize that we were not chosen to suffer Any more or less that anyone else, But rather to carry a memory trace, A responsibility threading through human time, Of the difference between cleanliness and defilement, Light and darkness, progress and degradation, Upcast in the face of society, impossible to ignore. So I will keep our bargain, and circumcise my son. |
