Dear Jephthah’s Daughter

How many children are given over in the name of nations
crying to call themselves something more, something else?
Your only wrong was dancing to your own music
when playing in the streets suddenly became unsafe.
You couldn’t have known
the danger that lay past the threshold.
In time you’ll never have,
we come to learn that age is not wisdom.

Dear Jephthah’s daughter, only known
by a killing re-envisioned as blameless,
what is a sacrifice called when it wants to be unmade?
How do we name the generations
when not a single one has escaped the meaning of war?

Dear Jephthah’s daughter,
we’re sorry your father only gave you a name for himself
to whimper into your hair,
just as it was repeated by
Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan
in your body in his arms
lies the only certain border.

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