Читать книгу Weak Devotions - Luke Hankins - Страница 6

I.

Creekmuck crawfish,

shitstenched mudbugs

swarming in the murk—

we set raw meat on nets

to see how many we could catch,

to cup

the smallest crayspawn in our palms,

wriggling open then shut.

Of Louisiana’s armored animals—

armadillo, rolypoly,

alligator snapping turtle—

of all shellcased hiders, carapace-duckers,

crawfish were the ones with claws,

and we’d allow the smaller ones

to pinch us and dangle from our skin.

And there were, of course, those armored falcons

diving at us in our dreams,

native ravagers sent in our sleep

to wake us to the fear of death.

II.

Bright cardinal,

red-feathered raptor

on the berried branch,

little dinosaur,

you cock your crested head

to see—

you plunge your thorn-like beak.

~

Coiled spring, you freeze

then chirp and leap,

hopping on your wings through air.

God’s little toy,

mesozoic wind-up—

what a pragmatic bit

of precise mechanical joy.

III.

Whitemouthed death living among us,

black length of muscle,

fanged wrangler with the mud,

slick pondswimmer, streamwanderer,

watermoccassin—

I watched my father slice a shovel through you

just below the skull—

death, thou shalt die, I had read—

and yet

when I remembered you in dreams, the way you wrung yourself

like a piece of rope that thought it was a hand, when I watched

that grasping over and again I knew that if even death itself

was doomed to die certainly I could not hope to escape.

IV.

On Good Friday the dogs were after crawfish in the creek—

they muddied up their shaggy hair,

they dragged their jaws through silt

and shallow water,

they ate the mud itself along with their prey.

We hosed them down and hoped they wouldn’t vomit in the house

when they had dried.

I watched cardinals hunting food and singing

in the yard, the dogs huffing on the sun-hot patio.

I brought the dogs inside,

but one was limping now

and looking down with glazed eyes.

We noticed a swollen leg, and laid the trembling dog down

as he died.

Cottonmouth, dad said.

~

I knew the prayers we’d been brought up to say—

Your kingdom come,

your will be done on earth

as it is in heaven.

I took dad’s shovel and dug a hole big enough for a kid like me.

There were roots and stones, so it took hours.

Dad had come out

to say he would finish it, then later that it was big enough,

but I wouldn’t let him stop me. I kept on digging,

thinking Whose will is this?

I finally went inside. My hands had blistered

and the blisters had broken against the handle

and they were raw and bleeding. I rinsed my hands

and bandaged them.

I remember thinking about Christ, trying to make

myself mean it as I said

Well, damn—if God can die, then so can I

before I fell asleep.