Abel

More precisely, the Hebrew is Havel: a breath. His life,
as short and ephemeral as an exhale. Don’t ask
if he was a boy scout, or if some lass from God-knows-
where had her sky blue eyes on him; he was
rubbed out, bumped off, smoked.

His brother, like David after Uriah, tried to Houdini himself
out of blame, thinking murder happened in a vacuum—
both thinking their victims wouldn’t be missed any more
than the sheep they kept.

Havel’s blood cries from the ground because he cannot.