Behold the amazing artificial arm, a machine

eerily similar to the arm it replaced, machined

to exacting tolerances, as its engineers say,

to ‘the limits of allowable error’.

Think of the hand in the glove, the piston

in the cylinder, the cartridge in the chamber

of an arm: a weapon, that is, a firearm,

to say it more primitively, more exactingly,

more ceremonially, and with more appropriate awe.

Behold then the arm from which fire comes, the hand

of a god hurling lightning. Behold the digital trigger, tick of

the finger on the hand separated from its body by the bomb

at the police station, the rifle smoking

just beyond it, as though it might yet shoot again,

the digital tick of the bomb’s timer also disembodied now.

Study the artificial arm, its array of hex-

head setscrews, its titanium armatures and axes,

its silicone skins from light pink to dark brown.

Here is this, from the company’s catalogue: ‘The upper

and lower forearm tubes are secured

to a four-position, manually locked elbow mechanism,’

and this, from God himself, having slain the man’s family

and saying to Job, Or hast thou an arm like God?

And Wilt thou also disannul my judgment?

Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

The nerve, and the lack. Beyond the limits of allowable error,

beyond the art of it, the story of Job, the trajectory

of narrative, the flight of the bearings and nails,

the improvised explosive device; beyond war itself, that honored

aesthetic ever-present evil alive and vile in the story

that is a lie about the truth and the truth, great engineer