I hadn't flown three thousand miles for this,
       but to see my sister after her chemotherapy.
       Now I'm swept up in the bloody ritual jaws
       of circumcision for her daughter Leslie's new boy.

       Family and in-laws I haven't seen in years bask,
       chatting, in the late September sun-bright living room
       as the "rabbi" orders, more than asks,
       us to be silent. It's clear already he's a ham.

       Bleached blond, chunky build, buffed cuticles,
       glib as a Vegas lounge lizard, he runs through prayers
       so fast, they buzz like flies. No one understands or cares.
       We want it over with, or, if possible, not at all.

       Faint, gaping from the oncoming shock, face flushed,
       Leslie carries in the baby on a pillowed tray
       covered with a sky-blue blanket like a ceremonial dish,
       his tiny arms tied to his sides.  "Not to worry," says

       the cutter in what sounds like his thousandth practiced pitch.
       "The child will feel no pain.  He'll cry
       because of the temperature change as the alcohol dries."
       Then he orders: "Mother, leave the room."  At which

       stock-still, face reddening, already accessory to the act, then
       slowly backing away, she turns and flees.
       His manicured left pinky dips into a cup of wine,
       then pokes into the baby's mouth.  It sucks and sighs.

       "That's more than I've had all day," he quips,
       although it's still only morning.  Then his right hand wipes
       the tiny penis with a swab of alcohol.
       From a surgical case at hand he picks a small-

       handled knife, and quick as a tailor
       at a loose thread, snips
       and covers it as the stunned, swelling pink face howls with terror
       from more than a temperature change. "Mother!" he calls; she trips

       staggering into the room from her banishment
       to the farthest end of the unsound-proofed house, panic
       in thrall to another obsolete, absolute commandment
       of the immemorial barbaric.