The Burden

You were five

when you had spelled

your family name—aloft

with crow & owl—

Fisher & Son,

and you without

a brother, though you’d wait

for years for one, hoping

he’d take the pressure

off your shoulders,

like Simon of Cyrene

the cross of Christ;

and it surely wouldn’t

have been as bad as that:

beatings till you swelled,

thorns inside your toque,

a hammer thumping nails

into your wrists and not the

barn.

Instead of evening chores,

you lay upon the straw as if

a manger—

the Saviour for his farm,

encircled by geese & goats,

the lilt from a fatted calf—

not a lamb that is fated

for the slaughter—but a heifer

which is milked unto the

bone, fenced on every side,

fettered in a maze of soaring

corn;

looking to a moon you’ll never

visit—foregoing astronaut,

your dream of engineer,

unable to sing of its glow

to the girl of your choice—

or boy if you prefer

and I think you do—

asking if he’ll kiss you

on the cheek,

bleeding from your

brow you’ll say is sweat

from a hard day’s work.

Andreas Gripp

November 20, 2025

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