lambs III
"Abel with a boxer’s feet, with a mutt’s bite."
Cain is 13 and wrecked with all this “mad”. He is young enough not to know the word for it, old enough that it stings, old enough to to try and spit it out from between his teeth, young enough that he doesn’t realize the taste sticks. He stands in front of the fireplace in the middle of the night, lights it himself, just the way his father taught him, watches the flames flicker and jump and sputter like the unsteady rhythm in his chest. Abel is sleeping in their bedroom, maybe dreaming. Cain is too awake, is mad like hunger, is mad like he was born with it. There is a stone on the mantle. There is a tuft of wool between the logs in the fire. There is a dull hum from the light on the front porch, the quiet scrape from the porch swing, pushed in the breeze. There is nowhere Cain feels like he can fit these pieces together. There is nowhere Cain feels like he isn’t aching. His knuckles are split from fighting in the back field, where Father wouldn’t see. His knees are bruised from long days between the stalks of corn. His ribs, so sore, from laughing, from shoving this feeling down somewhere deep, where it can still kick and scream, but he doesn’t have to name it. His lip is still bloody and he didn’t know Abel could swing his fist that wildly, could land a punch that firm. Abel, all thin limbs and sharp joints, all toothy smile. Abel with a boxer’s feet, with a mutt’s bite. Abel, scraping for the front of Cain’s shirt, succeeding in tugging him down towards him, landing that fist before Cain could register it. Abel who bites when he needs to, who tends the sheep, but bites when he needs to. Cain says it’s practice. Cain says it will make Abel strong, to fight like this. Cain thought he was more bite than bark, is happy to be wrong, this once. Cain smiles, all bright red teeth, all split lip, all proud of his younger brother for landing that hit. Cain spits into the fire, still-red spit, still-sore hands, and thumbs the ragged muzzle of his mouth.
