Chapter 18: As Cain – Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with a statement about Mormon doctrine: until 1978, the church taught that Black people were neutral in a pre-mortal conflict between God and Lucifer, and that this cowardice made them descendants of the cursed Cain. The speaker then describes working in a garden, pulling foxtail, and thinking of Abel’s blood soaking the earth. The earth is described as cursed for accepting death, yet possibly hoping to grow from it. The speaker recalls Cain’s invitation to Abel to go to the field. While weeding, the speaker cuts a thumb and performs a ritual of healing: first cold hose water, then putting the wound in the mouth. The speaker asks what mark God has given. The poem paraphrases God’s command to Cain to master his longing or become a restless wanderer. The chapter concludes with the idea that God first gives a curse, then a blessing—God keeps changing.

Key Events

Reference to Mormon preexistence doctrine and the curse of Cain directed at Black people.
Speaker uproots foxtail while thinking of Abel’s blood entering the earth.
Earth personified as cursed but open to growth from death.
Speaker cuts a thumb on a weed and performs a healing ritual with water and mouth.
Speaker questions the mark God has placed on them.
Paraphrase of God’s instruction to Cain: rule over desire or be a wanderer.
Final reflection that God moves from curse to blessing, changing intentions.

Character Development

The Speaker: The speaker wrestles with inherited religious narratives that label them as cursed. Through physical labor in the garden and a deliberate healing ritual, the speaker reclaims agency. The act of questioning what mark God has given shows a shift from passive acceptance to active reinterpretation of scripture and identity.
Cain: Referenced both biblically and as a figure the speaker aligns with. The poem repositions Cain not simply as a murderer but as someone who received first a curse and then a blessing, suggesting a more fluid divine relationship.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

The Garden as a Site of Reckoning: The act of weeding and tending the earth mirrors the speaker’s effort to uproot harmful doctrine. The garden is also where biblical violence (Abel’s murder) occurred, making it a place of memory and potential renewal.
Blood and Earth: Abel’s blood “drank” by the earth symbolizes how violence is absorbed and transformed. The earth is cursed for accepting death, yet it may hope to grow from it—a paradox of destruction and fertility.
Ritual Healing: The speaker’s specific sequence—cold water, then mouth—suggests a personal, almost sacred practice. It replaces institutional blessing with self-administered care, resisting the curse narrative.
The Mark of Cain: Traditionally a sign of divine protection, here the speaker questions what mark they carry. This interrogates how religious symbols are used to justify racial hierarchies.
God’s Changeability: The final lines assert that God’s mind shifts from curse to blessing, undermining the permanence of any divine condemnation and opening space for grace.

Why This Chapter Matters

This compact poem sits at the intersection of personal trauma, church history, and biblical exegesis. By naming the Mormon doctrine of preexistence and the curse of Cain, Cortez directly confronts a pillar of anti-Black theology. The speaker’s garden labor and healing ritual become acts of resistance and reclamation. The chapter matters because it models how a contemporary poet can take an ancient story used for oppression and, through careful rephrasing, turn it toward hope and blessing. It also demonstrates the power of physical embodiment—working with the earth, feeling pain, and self-healing—as a way to counter abstract doctrinal curses.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the title “As Cain” connect to the Mormon doctrine mentioned in the opening? The title invites the reader to see the speaker “as” Cain—not merely as an outsider looking in on the biblical figure, but as someone who inherits the curse assigned to Cain’s alleged descendants. The Mormon doctrine explicitly links Black people to this lineage, so the speaker occupies that role. Yet by claiming the position, the speaker can also claim the blessing that later appears in the poem, reversing the intended condemnation.

2. What is the significance of the speaker cutting their thumb and performing a specific healing ritual? The cut occurs while doing ordinary garden work, but the response is deliberate and ritualized: water first, then mouth. This mirrors ancient healing practices and echoes the act of putting a wound to one’s own mouth as a primal, self-sufficient response. In a chapter that questions divine marks and curses, the ritual reclaims the body as something the speaker can tend and bless without waiting for institutional or heavenly intervention.

3. Why does the poem end with “God’s always changing his mind about us”? The line directly contradicts the fixed curse of Cain doctrine. If God can change, then no human institution can permanently lock a people into condemnation. The ending reframes divine judgment as mutable, implying that the speaker (and by extension, those cursed by doctrine) can hope for a blessing. It also nods to the biblical pattern where God relents or renegotiates, as seen in stories like Jonah or Abraham’s intercession.