Phillip Medhurst

A sacrifice like Abel’s is required:

No shrieking root torn up,

Or apple plucked and dashed,

But some born thing, with sentience,

Whose face, bewildered by the knife

Will stare as life flows out.

That way our God is satisfied,

Reclaiming what he once bestowed,

Maybe, heartless, envying

This creature-kind who lived

And loved the crimson blood too much –

As though it were its own.